While her words were sarcastic, her great blue eyes were so sincere, were looking at me with such a depth of love and sympathy, that, taking courage, I went up to her and said: “You asked me what I want. I will confess to you what I do not want; I will not marry Count Taxen.” “Bravo, that is good,” she answered phlegmatically. “And what about the count, who purposes either to-day or to-morrow to make formal proposal for your hand?” In deadly fear, I cried: “How do you know this?” “From himself.” “And does he not see how utterly indifferent he is to me?” “No. That would be the last thing he would be likely to see.” “And how much more, how unspeakably more, I prefer another to him?” “That still less. A Count Taxen simply considers it an impossibility that a Baron Schwarzburg should be preferred before him.” “And Dora, who is a thousand times better suited to him, and who promised me that she would make capture of him--Dora, on whom I have set my hopes--why is she not as good as her word?” “Because she cannot, sweet Simplicity. Because she has done all in her power, but in vain. She is not to the count’s taste. He scents the egoist in her, and is too utterly the egoist himself not to avoid his duplicate.” “Oh, what can I do, Elizabeth! what can I do? If I have to marry the count I shall die of despair.” She threw her arms round me, and drew me down to her, and I laid my cheek upon her wavy hair. “Do you really think so?” she asked. “I believe you might manage to be not so desperately unhappy with him. Only you need to be a little wise, my pet; do not go against him in little things, and you would soon find that you had your own way in more important ones. You would have to be very careful not to hurt his vanity, and where possible to sing his praises to him.” “What, flatter him!” I cried, “praise what I do not approve! Flattery! oh, the shame and disgrace of it!” “Do not give it such high-sounding names,” said she. “To be a bad wife is the only shame and disgrace to a woman. In comparison with that, any self-imposed humiliation weighs but lightly in the scale. And after all, it is but a case of weighing one evil against another, a compromise with the enemy, otherwise called the ills of life. Perfect happiness, cloudless, whose lot is it? Who even may indulge an unbroken dream of it?” “Oh, were it only a matter of a dream, I should soon be in possession of it.” “Indeed! Then trust me, and put your dream into words.” “Dare I? May I?” “You must.” “Do not forget that it is only a dream.” “Well--begin.”