ed Melita, stamping her foot.

With that she went to the door, opened it and said, "I request Your
Royal Highness to leave my house this very second."

And George went.

* * * * *

DRESDEN, _June 1, 1896_.

Poor virtuous me, to chide myself, and call myself names for flirting
with Count Bielsk--at a distance of twenty feet or more! "I could kick
my back," as the Duc de Richelieu--not the Cardinal, but the lover of
the Regent's daughters and "every wife's husband"--used to say (only a
bit more grossly) when I think what I miss in this dead-alive Dresden.

Darmstadt isn't half as big a town, and the Hesse establishment doesn't
compare with ours in magnitude, but what fun Melita is having!

Of course, it isn't _all_ fun, for her husband is a "sexless" thing,
and, like the Grand-duchess Serge of Russia, she would be a virgin,
though married for years, if it wasn't for the other.

"The other" is none other but Kyril, the lover of our Dolores,--Kyril
isn't exactly pining away when separated from Melita.

Well, Melita wants him all to herself. She wants a divorce. The
complacent husband, who is no husband at all, doesn't suit her. Exit
Ernest Ludwig--officially. Enter Kyril--legitimately.

She made me reams of confidences, indulged in whole _brochures_ of
dissertations on the question of sex. What an ignoramus I am! I didn't
understand half she said and was ashamed to ask.

Ernest Ludwig is the most accommodating of husbands. Knows all about
Kyril and would gladly shut both eyes if they let him. Melita might, if
pressed very hard, for adultery has no terrors for her, but Kyril
affects the idealist. Sure sign that he really loves her. If he was
mine, I would be afraid of this Kyril. No doubt he is jealous as a Turk.

Last week the three of them had a conference. Lovely to see husband,
wife and paramour "in peaceful meeting assembled" and talk over the
situation as if it concerned the Royal stud or something of the sort.

No recriminations, no threats, no heroics; only when Ernest Ludwig
submitted that divorce be avoided to save his face as a sovereign, Kyril
got a bit excited.

"This is not a question of politics," he said, "or what the dear public
thinks. Your wife don't want you; as a matter of fact, she isn't your
wife, and since we are in love with each other, we ought to marry."

"Marry, marry, why always marry?" demanded the Grand-duke. "I
acknowledge that I haven't the