Clair de Lune Part 8

[_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 flas.h.i.+ng 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.