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bring trouble and vexation to us both. Rise from this foolish
position and take a seat in mannerly fashion here on this
bench so that we may converse in all calmness.”
“No, I want the book of my fate to be sealed in this
hour,” said Ulrik Frederik without rising. “You little know
the great and burning passion I feel for you, if you imagine
I can be content to be naught but your good friend. For
the bloody sweat of Christ, put not your faith in anything
so utterly impossible! My love is no smouldering spark that
will flame up or be extinguished according as you blow hot
or cold on it. Par dieu! ’Tis a raging and devouring fire, but
it’s for you to say whether it is to run out and be lost in a
thousand flickering flames and will-o’-the-wisps, or burn
forever, warm and steady, high and shining toward heaven.”
“But, dear Ulrik Frederik, have pity on me! Don’t draw
me into a temptation that I have no strength to withstand!
You must believe that you are dear to my heart and most
precious, but for that very reason I would to the uttermost
guard myself against bringing you into a false and
foolish position that you cannot maintain with honor. You are
nearly six years younger than I, and that which is now
pleasing to you in my person, age may easily mar or
distort to ugliness. You smile, but suppose that when you are
thirty you find yourself saddled with an old wrinkled hag
of a wife, who has brought you but little fortune, and not
otherwise aided in your preferment! Would you not then
wish that at twenty you had married a young royal lady,
your equal in age and birth, who could have advanced you
better than a common gentlewoman? Dear Ulrik Frederik,
go speak to your noble kinsmen, they will tell you the same.
But what they cannot tell you is this: if you brought to
your home such a gentlewoman, older than yourself, she
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