"Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna.
"P.S.--If you should prefer to negotiate directly with me, I may be found every evening after 7 o'clock in the 'Dismal Hole,' Gertrude street. No. 15. The same."
"Well, what do you say, Alexandrina?" snarled the count, letting his eye-glass drop, and putting the letter back in his pocket.
"That the whole thing is a poor invention of yours."
"Comment?" exclaimed the count, with an astonishment which was not affected in this case.
"Do you really think, sir," said the princess, trembling with rage and secret fear, "there is a particle of truth in the whole thing, and that I would be caught in such an ill-made snare? That I do not see what it all means? That you have only thought of this impudent invention because I am unwilling to waste the rest of my fortune upon your mad dissipation?"
"Really, Alexandrina. Hearing you speak so, one might actually believe your conscience was as clean as my gloves. Why, you are blinded by anger, my dearest! Please observe, this letter contains things of which I have no idea, nor can have an idea, e. g., the name of the good man in question. You know I have never been so happy as to hear yet whose blood flows in the veins of my son" (the count's teeth were glittering in a perfectly frightful manner); "and besides, you have an infallible means to ascertain the genuineness of this letter. Send for the writer! Twenty-one years will hardly have changed him so much that you should not recognize him."
"You think I am not going to do that? You are mistaken. I insist upon your bringing me this man of straw, with whom you wish to frighten me. Give me the letter."
"Avec le plus grand plaisir!" replied the count "There! But, Alexandrina, I hope the interview will take place in my presence, or I shall not be able to contain myself for jealousy."
"Devil!"