FULVIA (_turning away_): So let it be.

CHARLES: Why do you say so be it and sigh as Nought could again be well?

FULVIA: O----

CHARLES: Now you frown?

FULVIA: The hope you nurse, then, if it prove a pang Of serpent bitterness----

CHARLES: Prove pang? I then But for an "if" must pluck it from me?

FULVIA: So I must believe.

CHARLES: Pluck it from me! Will you-- Now will you have me mouth and foam and thresh The quiet in me to a maelstrom! This Is mine, this joy; and still is mine, though I To keep it must bring on me bitterness And bleeding and--I rage!

FULVIA: Then shall I cease, And say no more? No, you are on a flood Whose sinking may be rapid down to horror.

And she--this girl! It has been long since you Gave license rein upon your will, and spur.

Do not so now.

CHARLES: License?

FULVIA: She is all morn And dream and dew: make her not dark!

CHARLES: You think--!

FULVIA: Wake her not, ah, not suddenly on terror!

CHARLES: On terror! (_Laughing._)

FULVIA: You've laughed n.o.bler.

CHARLES: Fulvia, Friend of my unrepaying years, dream you I who in empire youth too soon forgot, Who on my brow surprise the wafted dew, The presages of age and death, shake not?

FULVIA: I knew not, but have waited oft such words.

CHARLES: Ah what! this hope, this leaping in me, this White dawn across my turbulence and night, From license?--Hear me. I have sudden found A door to let in heaven on my heart.

Had I not laughed to see your dread upon it Write "license," perilous had been my frown.

FULVIA: You will----?

CHARLES: Yes--yes! About her brow shall curl The coronet! Her wishes shall be sceptres Waving a swift fulfilment to her feet!

Her pity shall leave ready graves unfilled, Her anger open earth for all who offend!

She shall----

FULVIA: Ah cease, infatuate man! Will you Build kingdoms on the wind, and empires on A girl's ungiven heart?

CHARLES (_slowly_): Unto such love As mine all things are given.

FULVIA: All things but love.

CHARLES: Stood she not as in pleading? Yes--and to Her cheeks came hurried roses from her heart.

And her large eyes, did they not drift to mine Caressing?--yet as if in them they found The likeness of some visitant dear dream.

FULVIA: The likeness of some dream?

CHARLES: Question no more.

She is set in the centre of my need As youth and fiercest pa.s.sion could not set her.

Supernally as May she has burst on My barren age. Pain, envious decay, And doubt that mystery wounds us with, and wrong, Flee from the gleam and whisper of her name.

FULVIA: And if your coronet and heat avail Not with her as might charm of equal years And beauty?

CHARLES: Then--why then--why there may slip An avalanche of raging and despair Out of me! Hope of her once taken, all The thwarted thunders of my want would rush Into the void with lightnings for revenge!

_Enter ANTONIO._

ANTONIO: Sir, I'm returned.

CHARLES: With lightnings that shall--(_Sees him._) You?

Antonio? My eyes had other thought.

Open your news--but mind 'tis not of failure.

ANTONIO: We seized the murderous robbers in their cove And o'er the cliff, as our just law commands, To death flung them.

CHARLES: So with all traitors be it.

ANTONIO: So should it.

CHARLES: Well, 'twas swift. In you there is More than your mother's gentleness.

ANTONIO: Else were My name di Tocca, sir, and not myself.

CHARLES: You have my love.--But as you came met you The cardinal?

ANTONIO: So close he should by this Be at our gates.

CHARLES: He'll miss no welcome, and-- Perhaps--we shall-- (_Smiles on them._) Give me that cross you wear, My Fulvia. It may----

ANTONIO: Sir, this is good!

We earnestly beseech of you to hear The Pope's emba.s.sador with yielding.

CHARLES: Ah?-- But you, boy, draw out of this solitude And musing moodiness. You should think but On silly sighs and kisses, rhymes and trysts!

Must I yet teach your coldness youth?

(_A trumpet, and sound of opening gates._) Draw out!

ANTONIO: I have to-day desired some words of this.

_Enter CECCO._