How?

PHEDRO

Listen. Instead of attending to this myself, as I have done in hundreds of similar cases, I am going to take you into my confidence.

GWYMPLANE

What is it? What is it?

PHEDRO

Your lovely fellow artiste is gone.

GWYMPLANE [_crying out_]

Gone? My Dea! That is impossible. She does not wish to go anywhere that I am not.

PHEDRO

Perhaps her wishes remained unconsulted. She may have been abducted.

GWYMPLANE [_drawing back_]

What are you saying? It is so monstrous I must laugh or scream if I go on listening to you. [_shakes PHEDRO by the arm_] Come out with it.

Where has she gone? But she is in bed! Where else?

[_He runs back to the cart, and is heard calling frantically. The voice of URSUS answers him. PHEDRO stands listening, an evil smile contorting his mouth._]

GWYMPLANE [_off stage_]

Dea!

[_There is no answer._]

GWYMPLANE

[_Re-entering hurriedly. Goes up to PHEDRO in a threatening manner._]

I do not understand. There is something moving around me that is foul and stealthy. Tell me what it is or I'll make you feel as if you were falling down an abyss of knives.

PHEDRO

Calm, my gentle talker. To consider alternatives, one must keep one's presence of mind.

GWYMPLANE

I know. I can imagine what these courts are like and I'll usher you into h.e.l.l at once if you are trying to spatter any foul scheme upon what I love.

PHEDRO

Ah, Dea is yours?

GWYMPLANE

No, you squinting rodent. She is mine only as the light is mine, and she belongs to my soul as my prayers do.

PHEDRO

Be calm. You have misconstrued me and are wasting time hurling invectives at some unclean figure in your own fancy.

GWYMPLANE

Well, then, speak out quickly.

PHEDRO

The Prince has fallen desperately in love with her. He confided in me so much. The letter I received informed me that he had prevailed upon her in some manner to go with him and that I was to meet him in the palace at the stroke of the quarter to render him some service.

GWYMPLANE

I cannot believe it; let me see the letter.

PHEDRO

[_Searching his pockets and vest for the letter._]

Gracious, I must have torn it up in my nervousness. Ah yes, there it is.

[_He points to some pieces of torn paper lying at his feet in the darkness._]

GWYMPLANE [_knocking his fists to his forehead._]

You mean this letter came from him who is to marry the d.u.c.h.ess tomorrow? He who looks like the Athenian Victory. [_glancing at his own distorted limbs_] But Dea cannot see this. [_and in a voice almost of triumph_] And she cannot see him! He must have stolen her.

PHEDRO [_acidly_]

His eloquence would steal the pollen out of a flower.

GWYMPLANE

Ah Dea! But after all--he may have _told_ her.

PHEDRO

What?

GWYMPLANE [_with a strange sad gesture_]