Count: And that you tell me now for the first time! To¬
day, just before the boy is coming to visit us.
Prince: One never knows how such things will be taken.
Taken! Did you perhaps think....say, I'm
a bit of a psychologist myself. And that is what you call friend-
Count: Came now.
ship.
Prince: No one knew it, no one in the whole world.
Count: But you could have told me. I really don't under-
stand that you.... Really, it wasn't nice of you.
Prince: I wanted to wait till the chap developed. One can
never know.
Count: Yes, in such a majed descent..But now you seem re¬
assured.
Prince: Yes, he's a fine chap.
Count: (embrading him again) Well then, tell me where he
has lived till now.
Prince: The first years quite far from Vienna, in the Tyrol.
Count: With farmers?
He went to school first in
Prince: With a small landowner.
Innsbruck. And the last few years I have had him in Gymnasium in
Krems
Count: And so you visited him sometimes?
Prince: Naturally.
Count: And what he really think?
Prince: Till a few days ago he believed that he had no
neither father nor mother. And that I was a friend of
parents ;
father.
his dead
Countess: (on the balcony) Good morning, Prince Egon.
Prince: Good morning, Mizzi
Count: Wen’t you come down for a little, Mizzi?
Countess: If I’ll not disturb you....(She disappears.)
Count: Well, what shall we tell Mizzi?
Prince: I should naturally prefer to leave that to you.
But since I am adopting the boy and in a few days, through an act of
grace of his Majesty he will probably bear my name....