Berthold is as honest as she is, and tells her love has nothing to do with the matter.

The thought of an untrue life with Berthold then sends her heart with a rush back to Valence, and she chooses love and obscurity with Valence.

It is the portrait of incarnate truth, in vivid contrast to Constance, who is a liar in grain.
Constance is the heroine of the fragment of a drama called _In a Balcony_.

Norbert, a young diplomat, has served the Queen, who is fifty years old, for a year, all for the love of Constance, a cousin and dependent of the Queen.

He tells Constance he will now, as his reward, ask the Queen for her hand.