to look over the place
before she was married. And now he has gone to meet the carriage in
order to steer her off.

MIZZIE

How childish! 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
circumstances.

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