"
"Rubbish! The love of every man who is in his right mind is
carefully planned. Would you be in love with a king's daughter? It
is to be hoped not. You could keep out of the way of the king's
daughter. Why can I not keep out of the way of the poor girl?"
"That means that the princess' rank is as much a hindrance to love
as the poverty of the work-girl."
"I swear to you, Wilhelm, that if I were as rich, or as independent
as you, I would not think of a dowry. But I am a poor devil. If I
were so unfortunate as to fall in love with a poor girl, I would try
to get the better of the feeling. I would say to myself, better
endure a short time of unhappiness and disappointment than that she
and I should be condemned through life to the keenest want, which,
with prosaic certainty, would smother love."
While Paul argued with such ardor and earnestness, he was thinking
all the time of Fraulein Malvine Marker, the pretty girl with whom
he had danced so often, and he fondled tenderly with his right hand
the ribbon and cotillion order hidden under his waistcoat. He did
not notice that Wilhelm's expression of face was painfully
distorted, nor that his words wounded him deeply. They had come to
the Brandenburger Thor, and were walking over the Pariser Platz.
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