"Well then, tell me, Cousin Frederick William, what is in your eyes?" "I will tell you, Cousin Ludovicka Hollandine. They say: I love you! I love you! And nothing but I love you!" "But whom? To whom are these three little words addressed?" "To you, you heartless, you wicked one, to you are these words addressed. But not little words are they, as you say; they are great words, full of meaning: for a world, a whole human life, my whole future, lies in these three words--I love you." He embraced her and pressed her close to his heart, and Ludovicka leaned her head upon his shoulder and looked up at him with moist and glowing eyes. He nodded smilingly to her, and then took her head between his two hands and gazed long and rapturously upon her beautiful face. "So I have you at last, and hold you, my golden butterfly," he said gently. "You are mine at last, and I hold you fast by your transparent wings, so that you can not flutter away from me again to fly up to the sun, the flowers, the trees! O my butterfly! you pretty creature, made of ethereal dust and rainbow splendor, of air and sunshine, of lightning flashes and icy coldness, are you actually mine, then? May I trust you? Think not I am only a poor little flower on which you may smilingly rock yourself an hour in the sunshine, and enjoy the perfume which mounts up from its heart's blood, and the love songs which its sighs waft to you in the breeze! Tell me, you butterfly, will you no more flutter away, but be true and never more distress and torment me?" "I have never wished to distress and torment you, cousin." "And yet you have done it, so often, so grievously!" cried he, and his handsome open countenance grew quickly dark, while his eyes flashed with indignation. "Ludovicka," he continued, "you have tortured and tormented me, and often when I have seen how you smiled upon others and exchanged glances with them, and allowed yourself to be pleased by their homage, their devotion--often have I felt then as if an iron fist had seized my heart to tear it from my breast, and felt as if I enjoyed this, and as if I exulted with delight over my own wrath. Tear out my foolish heart, you iron fist of pain, said I to myself; cast it far from me, this childish heart, for then shall I be happy and glad, then shall I no longer feel love but be freed from the fearful bondage it imposes upon me. How often, Ludovicka, how often have I been ashamed of these chains, and bitten at them, as the lion, languishing in a dungeon, bites at his." "Truly, fair sir," cried Ludovicka, as arm in arm she and her beloved moved toward the divan--"truly, to hear you talk, one would suppose that love was a misfortune and a pain."