QUEEN [_sarcastically_]

No, rocks could hardly be curious about the waves or the wrecks washing against them. Come, Phedro.

[_She goes. PRINCE bows after the QUEEN and then comes back to the d.u.c.h.eSS._]

PRINCE

Beauty like yours is a penance for other women to regard. You are very like an exquisite temple in which there is no G.o.d. Yet I would not put a G.o.d in your temple.

d.u.c.h.eSS [_rather bored_]

No? What would you put there?

PRINCE

In the very centre of your temple I would place a faun with swift, strange limbs, crisp, serpentine hair, and the smile of a demon.

d.u.c.h.eSS [_turning to him slowly_]

The smile of a demon? I think that would be enchanting. Ah, how tired I am, I think I will go and rest. What in the world is one tired from?

What does one rest for----

[_She pauses in rather a lost manner._]

PRINCE

Yes, do go and rest, for tomorrow you must be radiant as a new-blown flower in the first rays of the sun.

d.u.c.h.eSS

[_Turning to him with a faint curiosity._]

I suppose that afterwards my appearance will please you, even if my spirits are never particularly high.

PRINCE

I do not care about your spirits. I do not care about your soul. I love the pliant rippling motion of your pensive youth. I love your imperial beauty, for it throws open the last sealed chambers of my own fancy.

d.u.c.h.eSS

Fancy--fancy--I have fancied so many things.

[_The sound of an approaching flute is heard together with the creaking of a carriage._]

A strange sound, what can it be?

[_During the ensuing speeches the creaking and the flute come nearer._]

PRINCE

Josephine, our life together will be exquisite. It will be as the lives of the Romans in Greece--a baccha.n.a.le of peculiar formalities.

We will bury conscience in the poppy-haunted air of exhausting revelry. We will----

d.u.c.h.eSS

O Charles, you talk exactly like those men who design my dresses, but look----

[_Her eyes are riveted upon a curious cavalcade crossing from right to left of stage, first a very small house on wheels drawn by a large wolf-dog; at its side, walking, an old man, his head bent in deep thought. He wears the cap and gown of a doctor of philosophy. After him, with dark hair falling almost to the ground about her pallid face, is walking a girl of extraordinary beauty. She is looking rigidly ahead of her and is being guided by a white ribbon suspended from the back of the cart. A few paces behind her comes a sinuous, coffee-skinned slave girl with that erect majesty of one who has worn crowns or carried water pitchers through generations. Behind the slave follows the flute player, a mountebank, horribly twisted in some manner not visible in the twilight. The PRINCE, who has permitted the carriage to go by him in a wonderment intensified by the beauty of the blind girl, walks over to the mountebank._]

PRINCE [_arrogantly_]

Who are you all? What are you doing here?

[_Instead of answering, the mountebank hastily puts his flute into his pocket and executes a handspring, the third taking him altogether behind the scene, while from the front of the cavalcade, comes a high, cracked voice in answer to the PRINCE'S question._]

A VOICE

We are players, your Highness, mountebanks commanded for the pleasure of the Queen.

[_The d.u.c.h.eSS has grown very white and is standing with her hand pressing her heart._]

d.u.c.h.eSS

What was that tune he played upon his flute, and what dreadful thing was the matter with him?

PRINCE

I do not know, but as she walked by her face was beautiful. It was like a prayer coming into the presence of G.o.d.

d.u.c.h.eSS [_regarding the PRINCE sharply_]

Really? What can be speaking in you? Surely not yourself?

[_She laughs shrilly and exits. The flute continues to play. The PRINCE absorbed, unheeding her departure, stands looking after the mountebanks._]

_CURTAIN_

SCENE 2

[_In the palace grounds at night. Lanterns are suspended everywhere from the trees. The front of the players' cart is seen protruding up-stage left. The philosopher is seated on the steps of the car smoking a pipe. The blind girl with strange, tentative footsteps and feeling hands is busy with duties around the cart._]

DEA

Think of it; we are in the park of the Queen, and these lilies and roses are brushed every day by the silken stir of her ladies-in-waiting.

URSUS