PRINCE.

Certainly, Your Majesty. [Aside.] I haven’t heard a word about it.

QUEEN.

It makes me very happy to know that in this matter, as indeed in most things, my son and I are so completely in accord.  Then you, also, think as we do on this subject?

PRINCE.

Undoubtedly—­undoubtedly, Your Majesty. [Aside.] If I only knew what subject!

QUEEN.

My son writes me that I may rely entirely on your sympathy in this affair.

PRINCE.

He did not exaggerate, Your Majesty.  When I parted from him, his last words, called after my moving carriage, were these:  “Dear friend, my gracious mother, the Queen, will inform you as to all further details concerning the affair in question.”

QUEEN.

That sounds very like him.  I am quite ready to do as he says.

PRINCE (aside).

The plot thickens.

QUEEN.

You know that the Electors of Brandenburg have but recently become Kings of Prussia.  Although a Hanoverian Princess myself, I find my happiness in Prussia’s greatness, my pride in Prussia’s fame.  No state has such need to be careful in the choice of its alliances, political or matrimonial, as our own.  And hence there is no subject so interesting and so important to our country at the moment as a certain question which is already exciting the Cabinets of Europe, a question—­the answer to which you have doubtless already guessed.

PRINCE.

I think—­I may say—­that I understand Your Majesty entirely. [Aside.]
What can she mean?

QUEEN.

No one can call me unduly proud.  But if one belongs to a family which has recently had the honor of being chosen to fill the throne of England—­if one is the daughter of a King, the wife of a King, the mother of a future King—­you will understand that in this matter of my daughter’s future—­there are weighty considerations which force me to avoid any possible political mesalliance.

PRINCE.

Mesalliance?  The Princess?  Your daughter [Bewildered.] I must confess—­I was but superficially informed of all these matters.

QUEEN.

What I am about to tell you, Prince, under the seal of your utmost discretion, is a secret and the result of the gravest negotiations and plans.  You know what kind of a Court this is at which I live.  I am denied the influence which should be my right as mother of my country.  The King has surrounded himself with persons who have separated him from me.  I dare not think how this company of corporals and sergeants will receive my deeply thought-out plans.  How will the King be inclined in regard to a matter that is of such decisive importance for the happiness of his children and the fair fame of his house?  In this, Prince, you see my need of a man of your intelligence, your insight, that I may know what to hope—­or [firmly] if need be—­what to dare!