Then, almost snatching the letter from his young wife's fingers, he read it through, and with a sudden movement tore it up and flung it upon the carpet, saying: "I refuse to discuss any unsigned letter! Really, if we were to notice every letter written by the common scum we should, indeed, have sufficient to do." His wife's arched brows narrowed. Her pale, delicate face, in which the lines of care had appeared too prematurely, already betrayed fiercest anger. "I happen to have inquired, and I now know that those allegations are correct!" she cried. "This dark-haired singer-woman, Irene Speroni, has attained great success on the variety stage in Italy. She is the star of the Sala Margherita in Rome." "Well?" he asked in defiance. "And what of it, pray?" "That letter you have destroyed tells me the truth. I received it a few days ago, and sent an agent to Italy in order to learn the truth. He has returned to-night. See!" And suddenly she produced a crannied snapshot photograph, of postcard size, of the Crown-Prince in his polo-playing garb, and with him a smartly-dressed young woman, whose features were in the shadow. I caught sight of that picture, because when he tossed it from him angrily without glancing at it, I picked it up and handed it back to the Crown-Princess. "Yes," she cried bitterly, "You refuse, of course, to look upon this piece of evidence! I now know why you went to Wiesbaden. The woman was singing there, and you gave her a pair of emerald and diamond earrings which you purchased from Vollgold in Unter den Linden. See! Here is the bill for them!" And again she produced a slip of paper. At this the Crown-Prince grew instantly furious, and, pale to the lips, he roundly abused his long-suffering wife, telling her quite frankly that, notwithstanding the fact that she might spy upon his movements, he should act exactly as his impulses dictated. That scene was, indeed, a disgraceful one, ending in the poor woman, in a frantic paroxysm of despair, tearing off the splendid necklet of diamonds at her throat--his present to her on their marriage--and casting it full into his face. Then, realizing that the scene had become too tragic, I took her small hand, and, with a word of sympathy, led her out of the room and along the corridor. As I left her she burst into a sudden torrent of tears; yet when I returned again to the Crown-Prince I found his manner had entirely changed. He treated his wife's natural resentment and indignation as a huge joke, and it was then that His Imperial Highness declared to me: "Cilli is a fool!"