THE PRINCESS. [_Reassured._] Oh, I'm not going away.
STRÜBEL. That's right. But--where have you come from? The door was locked. Surely you didn't climb through the window as I did?
THE PRINCESS. [_Frightened._] What? You came--through the window?----
THE PRINCESS. [_Frightened anew._] Then I had rather----
STRÜBEL. Oh, my dear young lady, you just stay right here. Why, before I'd drive you away I'd pitch myself headlong over a precipice!
THE PRINCESS. [_Smiling, reassured._] I only wanted to go out into the woods for half an hour.
STRÜBEL. Oh, then you're a regular guest here at the Inn?
THE PRINCESS. [_Quickly._] Yes--yes, of course.
STRÜBEL. And of course you drink the waters down below?
THE PRINCESS. [_In a friendly way._] Oh, yes, I drink the waters. And I'm taking the baths, too.
STRÜBEL. Two hundred metres up and down every time! Isn't that very hard on you? Heavens! And you look so pale! See here, my dear young lady, don't you do it. It would be better for you to go down there--that is--{ SPACE}Oh, forgive me! I've been talking without thinking. Of course, you have your own reasons--{ SPACE}It's decidedly cheaper up here. _I_ know how to value a thing of that sort. I've never had any money in all my life!
THE PRINCESS. [_Trying to seem practical._] But when one comes to a watering-place, one must have money.
STRÜBEL. [_Slapping himself on the chest._] Do I look to you as if I drank iron? Thank Heaven, I can't afford such luxuries! No; I'm only a poor fellow who earns his miserable pittance during vacation by acting as a private tutor--that's to say, "miserable" is only a figure of speech, for in the morning I lie abed until nine, at noon I eat five and at night seven courses; and as for work, I really haven't a thing to do! My pupil is so anæmic--why, compared to him, _you're_ fit for a circus rider!
THE PRINCESS. [_Laughing unrestrainedly._] Oh, well, I'm rather glad I'm not one.
STRÜBEL. Dear me, it's a business like any other.
THE PRINCESS. Like any other? Really, I didn't think that.
STRÜBEL. And pray, what did you think then?
THE PRINCESS. Oh, I thought that they were--an entirely different sort of people.
STRÜBEL. My dear young lady, all people are "an entirely different sort." Of course _we_ two aren't. We get along real well together, don't we? As poor as church mice, both of us!