The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 91

PRINCE

What's wrong now?

COUNT

Oh, my dear old friend, it's going downhill.

PRINCE

How? That's a funny way of talking, Arpad. What do you mean by downhill?

COUNT

One grows old, Egon.

PRINCE

Yes, and gets accustomed to it.

COUNT

What do you know about it--you who are five years younger?

PRINCE

Six almost. But at fifty-five the springtime of life is pretty well over. Well--one gets resigned to it.

COUNT

You have always been something of a philosopher, old chap.

PRINCE

Anyhow, I can't see what's the matter with you. You look fine. (_Seats himself; frequently during this scene he glances up at the balcony; pause_)

COUNT (_with sudden decision_)

Have you heard the latest? She's going to marry.

PRINCE

Who's going to marry?

COUNT

Do you have to ask? Can't you guess?

PRINCE

Oh, I see. Thought it might be Mizzie. And that would also.... So Lolo is going to marry.

COUNT

She is.

PRINCE

But that's hardly the "latest."

COUNT

Why not?

PRINCE

It's what she has promised, or threatened, or whatever you choose to call it, these last three years.

COUNT

Three, you say? May just as well say ten. Or eighteen. Yes, indeed. In fact, since the very start of this affair between her and me. It has always been a fixed idea with her. "If ever a decent man asks me to marry him, I'll get off the stage _stante pede_." It was almost the first thing she told me. You have heard it yourself a couple of times.

And now he's come--the one she has been waiting for--and she's to get married.

PRINCE

Hope he's decent at least.

COUNT

Yes, you're very witty! But is that your only way of showing sympathy in a serious moment like this?

PRINCE

Now! (_He puts his hand on the Count's arm_)

COUNT

Well, I a.s.sure you, it's a serious moment. It's no small matter when you have lived twenty years with somebody--in a _near_-marital state; when you have been spending your best years with her, and really shared her joys and sorrows--until you have come to think at last, that it's never going to end--and then she comes to you one fine day and says: "G.o.d bless you, dear, but I'm going to get wedded on the sixteenth...."

Oh, d.a.m.n the whole story! (_He gets up and begins to walk about_) And I can't blame her even. Because I understand perfectly. So what can you do about it?

PRINCE

You've always been much too kind, Arpad.

COUNT

Nothing kind about it. Why shouldn't I understand? The clock has struck thirty-eight for her. And she has said adieu to her profession. So that anybody can sympathize with her feeling that there is no fun to go on as a ballet dancer retired on half pay and mistress on active service to Count Pazmandy, who'll be nothing but an old fool either, as time runs along. Of course, I have been prepared for it. And I haven't blamed her a bit--'pon my soul!

PRINCE