The Gay Lord Quex Part 28

QUEX.

Poor women! Nevertheless, pray be careful how you slight the manicure trade. Crazes die, you know--nails grow.

POLLITT.

[_Tapping his breast._] I think _we_ have come to stay, my lord.

QUEX.

[_Lightly._] Well, you're sailing pretty close to the wind, remember, you fellows.

POLLITT.

My lord!

QUEX.

[_Replacing his newspaper upon the table._] And if some day you should find yourselves in the police-court, alongside a poor old woman whose hand has been crossed with a threepenny-bit down an area--

_The_ d.u.c.h.eSS _appears on the further side of the low cypress-hedge. She is dressed for dinner. The sky is now faintly rosy, and during the ensuing scene it deepens into a rich sunset._

QUEX.

We are going to have a flaming sunset, d.u.c.h.ess.

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Superb.

POLLITT.

[_Haughtily._] I wish you good evening, my lord.

QUEX.

Oh, good evening, Mr. Valma. [_To himself._] Impudent beggar!

[POLLITT _walks away. After watching his going, the_ d.u.c.h.eSS _comes eagerly forward._

d.u.c.h.eSS.

[_Her hand upon her heart._] Oh! I am here, Harry!

QUEX.

[_In delicate protest._] Ah, my dear d.u.c.h.ess!

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Fortunately I have been able to dress quickly without exciting curiosity. My maid was summoned away this afternoon, to her father who is sick. [_Sinking on to the bench._] Still, these risks are considerable enough.

QUEX.

And yet you deliberately court them!

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Great pa.s.sions involve great dangers. The history of the world shows that.

QUEX.

But why now--now that circ.u.mstances are altered between us? why, on earth, do you play these hazardous tricks now?

d.u.c.h.eSS.

I was determined to meet, to know, the girl with whom you are about to _ranger_ yourself, Harry.

QUEX.

Even that could have been arrived at in some safer way.

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Ah, but you fail to see; it was the daring of this proceeding that attracted me--the romance of it!

QUEX.

[_Raising his hands._] Romance! still!

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Always. It is the very blood in my veins. It keeps me young. I shall die a romantic girl, however old I may be.

QUEX.

You ought, you really ought, to have flourished in the Middle Ages.

d.u.c.h.eSS.

You have frequently made that observation. [_Rising._] I do live in the Middle Ages, in my imagination. I live in every age in which Love was not a cool, level emotion, but a fierce, all-conquering flame--a flame that grew in the heart of a woman, that of a sudden spread through her whole organism, that lit up her eyes with a light more refulgent than the light of sun or moon! [_Laying her hand upon his arm._] Oh, oh, this poor, thin, modern sentiment miscalled Love--!

QUEX.

[_Edging away._] Sss.h.!.+ pray be careful!

d.u.c.h.eSS.

Ah, yes. But, dear Harry, I cannot endure the ordeal any longer.