DOMINICA—I am very happy, Beatrice, that the obstacles which lay in the
way of this marriage are vanished. Now Albert can follow the call of his
heart. [_She sighs deeply._]
BEATRICE—Now it’s you who sighed.
DOMINICA—I don’t deny it, Beatrice. It is no great credit to our
diplomats that my son must marry for love. It grieves me to think that
the incompetence of our diplomats should compel my son to follow the call
of his heart.
BEATRICE—Perhaps he’ll be happier for it.
DOMINICA—If we had had a Metternich, Albert might have been very unhappy,
but then there would have been a real marriage. Don’t be angry at my
candor.... One’s Family, you know!... We are not what we are—to strive
for _personal_ happiness.
BEATRICE—Alas, no.
DOMINICA—If you knew what Albert has gone through. First that Russian
girl, Olga Constantinovna....
BEATRICE—Oh, I know. And then the English girl, Patricia.
DOMINICA—You know that, too?
BEATRICE—I have followed his political career with the utmost interest.
And then, in Dresden, came Leopoldine Charlotte ... the fat one.
DOMINICA—How well you know everything! From there he went to Portugal.
BEATRICE—In the middle of July ... Silvina Gonzaga, that odious infanta.
DOMINICA—Odious? That doesn’t describe her. Perhaps there is a word for
it in Portuguese. In any case “odious” is quite inadequate. And then came
that amazing affair with Marie Hermine in Brussels.
BEATRICE—She is fully two heads taller than Albert.
DOMINICA—Yes. But we never knew it because she had always sent us bust
portraits.
BEATRICE—Yes, I know.
DOMINICA—How perfectly charming of you to _know_ everything!
BEATRICE—Oh, well, you see, I have regarded Albert as one of the family
ever since he was a child. [_HYACINTH enters at back._]