No joking please, Sonnsfeld. It was the only answer I could possibly send to the Prince's tender epistle.
SONNSFELD.
Impossible!—To become an accomplice to a forbidden correspondence in this Court might cost one's life.
WILHELMINE.
You will make me angry!—here, dispatch this letter, and quickly.
SONNSFELD.
No, Princess. But I know a better means, an absolutely sure means of dispatching the letter to its destination, and that is—[She glances toward a door in the background] deliver it yourself.
[She slips out of a side door.]
SCENE III
The PRINCE HEREDITARY OF BAIREUTH, dressed in the French taste of the period, as different as possible from the king's favorite garb, comes in cautiously.