PRINCE.

Princess, would you drive me mad?  I offer you an insult?

WILHELMINE.

Have you not heard what sort of a person this learned Laharpe of yours really is?

PRINCE.

Princess, Laharpe is one of the most intelligent of men and possessed of a pretty wit.  One might search long among your scholars here in Berlin before finding his equal in cultivation.

WILHELMINE.

He is a wigmaker from Orleans!

PRINCE.

But I assure you, Princess, he is not a wigmaker.  It is true Laharpe does understand the splitting of hairs, but only in scientific controversy; it is true he does use paint and powder, in that he paints his thoughts in words of elegance, and lays on them the powder of ingenious sophistry—­an art that is better understood in France than here.  It is unfortunate enough, Your Highness, that your royal father’s kingdom should be in such bad repute that foreigners of wit, poetry, and cultivation can be admitted only when they come bearing the passport of wigmakers.

WILHELMINE.

But our plan has come to naught; Laharpe has been banished.

PRINCE.

A weak reflection of his brilliancy has remained, Princess.  Do not think me quite unworthy of taking his place.  Grant me the blessed consciousness of having aided you to escape a situation which passes all bounds of filial obedience.

WILHELMINE.

Prince—­this language—­

PRINCE.

It is the language of a feeling I can no longer control, of an indignation I can no longer suppress.  Princess, do you know that you are destined as a sacrifice to political and commercial intrigue?  That you are to be sent to England in exchange for the produce of English factories?

WILHELMINE (in indignation).

Who says that?

PRINCE.

Far be it from me to pass judgment on your desires—­far be it from me to inquire if it may not surprise, perhaps even please your ambitions when you hear that you might win even an Imperial crown—­but, if you love the Prince of Wales—­

WILHELMINE.

The Prince of Wales?  Who says that I love him?

PRINCE.

Your mother, who presupposes it—­your father, who commands it.

WILHELMINE.

The Prince of Wales?  My cousin, whom I have never seen?  Who has never betrayed the slightest interest in me?  A Prince whose loose living has made me despise him!

PRINCE.

Then you do not love the Prince?

WILHELMINE.

My heart is free.  And no power on earth can force me to give it to any man but to him whom I shall choose myself.

PRINCE.

Do I hear aright?

WILHELMINE.

I have been obedient and dutiful from the very first stirring of my personal consciousness.  I have never had a will of my own, or dared, if I had that will, to give it expression.  But when they would take the one thing from me, the one thing that is still mine after all these years of humiliation, my own inalienable possession, my heart’s free choice—­then indeed the bottomless depths of my obedience will be found exhausted.  I feel that my brother was justified in throwing off such a yoke—­and I will show the world that I am indeed his sister.