The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 98

How childis.h.!.+ And how pathetic, when you come to think of it! I should really like to make her acquaintance. Don't you think it's too silly?

There is my father, spending half his lifetime with a person who is probably very attractive--and I don't get a chance--don't have the right--to shake hands with her even. Why does he object to it anyhow?

He ought to understand that I know all about it.

PRINCE

Oh, heavens, that's the way he is made. And perhaps he might not have minded so much, if he were not expecting another visit at this very moment....

MIZZIE

Another visit, you say?

PRINCE

For which I took the liberty to prepare him.

MIZZIE

Who is it?

PRINCE

Our son.

MIZZIE

Are you ... bringing your son here?

PRINCE

He'll be here in half an hour at the most.

MIZZIE

I say, Prince ... this is not a joke you're trying to spring on me?

PRINCE

By no means. On a departed ... what an idea!

MIZZIE

Is it really true? He's coming here?

PRINCE

Yes.

MIZZIE

Apparently you still think that nothing but a whim keeps me from having anything to do with the boy?

PRINCE

A whim...? No. Seeing how consistent you have been in this matter, it would hardly be safe for me to call it that. And when I bear in mind how you have had the strength all these years not even to ask any questions about him....

MIZZIE

There has been nothing admirable about that. I have had the strength to do what was worse ... when I had to let him be taken away ... a week after he was born....

PRINCE

Yes, what else could you--could we have done at the time? The arrangements made by me at the time, and approved by you in the end, represented absolutely the most expedient thing we could do under the circ.u.mstances.

MIZZIE

I have never questioned their expediency.

PRINCE

It was more than expedient, Mizzie. More than our own fate was at stake. Others might have come to grief if the truth had been revealed at the time. My wife, with her weak heart, had probably never survived.

MIZZIE

Oh, that weak heart....

PRINCE

And your father, Mizzie.... Think of your father!

MIZZIE

You may be sure he would have accepted the inevitable. That was the very time when he began his affair with Lolo. Otherwise everything might not have come off so smoothly. Otherwise he might have been more concerned about me. I could never have stayed away several months if he hadn't found it very convenient at that particular moment. And there was only one danger connected with the whole story--that you might be shot dead by Fedor w.a.n.genheim, my dear Prince.

PRINCE

Why I by him? It might have taken another turn. You are not a believer in judgment by ordeal, are you? And the outcome might have proved questionable from such a point of view even. You see, we poor mortals can never be sure how things of that kind are regarded up above.

MIZZIE

You would never talk like that in the Upper House--supposing you ever opened your mouth during one of its sessions.

PRINCE

Possibly not. But the fundamental thing remains, that no amount of honesty or daring could have availed in the least at the time. It would have been nothing but useless cruelty toward those nearest to us. It's doubtful whether a dispensation could have been obtained--and besides, the Princess would never have agreed to a divorce--which you know as well as I do.

MIZZIE

Just as if I had cared in the least for the ceremony...!