r you wrote was forced from you.

HELENE. A lawyer surely would understand that for things done _in
terrorem_ one is not responsible. Now see what I am doing--yesterday I
hoped never again to see Lassalle, and now I am planning and praying he
will come to me.

MAID. Your heart is with Lassalle.

HELENE. It seems so.

MAID. Then God will bring it about, and you shall be united.

_Enter SERVANT_

SERVANT. Prince Racowitza!

_Enter PRINCE RACOWITZA_

[The Prince is small, dark, dapper, unobjectionable. He is much
agitated. Helene holds out her hand to him in a friendly, but
non-committal, discreet way. Maid starts to go.]

PRINCE. [_To maid_] Do not leave the room--I have serious news, and your
mistress may need your services when I tell her what I have to say!

HELENE. [_Relieved by the thought that the Prince is about to renounce
all claims to one so caught in the web of scandal_] You will remain with
me, Elizabeth; I may need you. And now, Prince Yanko--I am steeled
[_tries to smile_]--give me the worst. [_The Prince making passes in
the air, tierce and thrust with his cane at an imaginary foe_] I say,
dear Prince, tell me the worst--I think I can bear it. [_Helene is
almost amused by the sight of the semi-comic opera-bouffe prince_] Tell
me the worst!

PRINCE. Lassalle has challenged your father!

HELENE. [_Blanching_] Lassalle has challenged my father!

PRINCE. To the death. [_Aiming with his cane at a piece of statuary in
the corner_] One, two, three--fire!

HELENE. It is not so. Lassalle is opposed to the code on principle.

PRINCE. There are no principles in time of war! Are you ready,
gentlemen--One, two, three!

HELENE. [_Contemptuously_] Why do you not fight him?

PRINCE. Is there no way, gentlemen, by which this unfortunate affair can
be arranged? If not----

HELENE. You did not hear me!

PRINCE. Oh, yes, I heard you, and I am to fight him at sunrise. Your
father turned the challenge over to me!

HELENE. To you?

PRINCE. And your father has fled to Paris--it is a serious thing to be a
party to a duel in Germany--a sure-enough duel!

HELENE. But you are not a swordsman, nor have you ever shot a
pistol--you told me so once.

PRINCE. But I have been practising at the shooting-gallery for two
hours. The keeper there says I am a wonderful shot--I hit a
plaster-of-Paris rabbit seven times in succession!

[Helene is excited; her thought is that Lassalle, being a