Clair de Lune - novelonlinefull.com
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[_Enter the PRINCE--debonair and haughty. PRINCE ignores PHILOSOPHER and pulls PHEDRO aside._]
PRINCE
Well! What have you arranged?
PHEDRO
My lord--the desires of youth are swifter than my wits. Yet I have tried.
PRINCE
Nonsense.... No rhetoric.... What is accomplished?
PHEDRO
It will be easily managed. I have your keys.
PRINCE
Is she willing?
PHEDRO
Innocence is always obliging at such a moment.
PRINCE
Neither the Queen nor the d.u.c.h.ess must have an inkling of this.
PHEDRO
No, my lord.
PRINCE
Tonight and tomorrow night.... What contrasts! Two crimes! A secret and a public one!
PHEDRO
My lord is sardonic.
[_URSUS after looking at them for a few moments has wandered off to the cart, and is seen making preparations for the evening's performance. There is the sound of DEA'S singing._]
PRINCE
Ah, how exquisite! I think I shall go and speak with her!
PHEDRO [_detaining him_]
Better not, my lord, much better not.
PRINCE [_shaking him off_]
All right, all right. Only don't insist, don't irritate me or I shall spite myself.... I cannot bear to take any one's advice.
PHEDRO
Nor do you, my lord. I merely reminded you of the presence of your own common sense.
PRINCE
[_A pettish grimace flashing across his countenance_]
I hope this performance may make the d.u.c.h.ess forget herself for a few moments. She has seemed more than ordinarily bored today.
PHEDRO [_murmuring_]
To be so matchless as her Grace is as bad as being blind. It gives one nowhere to look.
PRINCE
She is perfection outside; inside--I do not know. Where is that distorted fellow that bounded away from me in the darkness just before dinner?
PHEDRO
Oh--Gwymplane--he is probably off somewhere charming the birds awake with his flute.
PRINCE [_in reverie_]
Yes, Josephine is magnificent. Yet I think there is a strange grimace upon the face of her soul. I am longing to find out what is at the bottom of her smile. Ah, I shall be the first to bathe in her delights. It is a most invigorating thought.
[_He plucks a flower and places it in his b.u.t.tonhole._]
PHEDRO
My lord finds it enchanting to be the first?
PRINCE
It is the only enchantment. If you were a real man, you would know that, Phedro, but if you were really a man I could not confide in you.
PHEDRO [_winces then recovers himself_]
My lord was saying----
PRINCE [_in a mood of reverie_]
That pa.s.sion yearns for surprises--and love hankers after peace.
