is secret," said
the count quietly. "I say opening, for like a festering sore it has
rankled in your bosom, and believe me, Adolphus, since it has been opened,
you will experience relief and your heart will heal. It has befallen many
another man to be caught in the snares of a coquette, and to have a few
costly illusions dispelled. But consider, my son, each illusion lost is
an experience gained, and experience is cheaply bought with the dreams of
the heart. Experience, you know, brings knowledge of the world, and
knowledge of the world forms the diplomatist and statesman. You are
already, my son, no despicable statesman, and you will some day play a
great game, even though you are not the Electoral Princess's husband.
For the rest I can give you one comforting assurance, and relieve your
mind of an oppressive consciousness. In order to do this I have allowed
you to vent your rage, and listened with attentive ear to your passionate
complaints. My consolation is this: you have never loved the Princess
Charlotte Louise--that is to say, never loved her with your heart, but
only with your vanity and ambition. It was very flattering to you to be
loved by a Princess, and ambition whispered to you that through your wife
you might become reigning Elector, if the Electoral Prince were only put
out of the way by fate or some other obliging hand. There was surely some
prospect of this, and you know how exultingly we both looked forward to
such a future. But we made shipwreck of those plans, and now it is too
late to build them anew. However, let us not mourn over the past, but
forget it. This hour has witnessed your last lament over your dead past.
Its knell has been rung, let us both now doom it to oblivion. I have
retained one thing in my memory, however, and that is the note which the
incautious Princess gave you that evening in the greenhouse. Do you still
possess it?"

"Yes, I still possess it, and as often as I look at it my heart is like to
burst with indignation and wrath!"

"On the contrary, Adolphus, you ought to rejoice whenever you look at it,
for you can turn this little note into a formidable weapon against the
Electoral house. With this note you can some day force the young Elector
to make you my successor, confirm you in the rank of Grand Master of the
Knights of St. John, or even, if you still wish it, make you the husband
of his sister Charlotte Louise. Ah! my son, a note in which the Elector's
sister invites yo