Neither Fibi nor Vinos moved.

Meanwhile the ineffable blind look of Dea’s eyes met those of Ursus.  He started.

“Well!” he cried; “what are you about?  Vinos!  Fibi!  Do you not hear your mistress?  Are you deaf?  Quick! the play is going to begin.”

The two women looked at Ursus in stupefaction.

Ursus shouted,—­

“Do you not hear the audience coming in?—­Fibi, dress Dea.—­Vinos, take your tambourine.”

Fibi was obedient; Vinos, passive.  Together, they personified submission.  Their master, Ursus, had always been to them an enigma.  Never to be understood is a reason for being always obeyed.  They simply thought he had gone mad, and did as they were told.  Fibi took down the costume, and Vinos the tambourine.

Fibi began to dress Dea.  Ursus let down the door-curtain of the women’s room, and from behind the curtain continued,—­

“Look there, Gwynplaine! the court is already more than half full of people.  They are in heaps in the passages.  What a crowd!  And you say that Fibi and Vinos look as if they did not see them.  How stupid the gipsies are!  What fools they are in Egypt!  Don’t lift the curtain from the door.  Be decent.  Dea is dressing.”

He paused, and suddenly they heard an exclamation,—­

“How beautiful Dea is!”

It was the voice of Gwynplaine.

Fibi and Vinos started, and turned round.  It was the voice of
Gwynplaine, but in the mouth of Ursus.

Ursus, by a sign which he made through the door ajar, forbade the expression of any astonishment.

Then, again taking the voice of Gwynplaine,—­

“Angel!”

Then he replied in his own voice,—­

“Dea an angel!  You are a fool, Gwynplaine.  No mammifer can fly except the bats.”

And he added,—­

“Look here, Gwynplaine!  Let Homo loose; that will be more to the purpose.”

And he descended the ladder of the Green Box very quickly, with the agile spring of Gwynplaine, imitating his step so that Dea could hear it.

In the court he addressed the boy, whom the occurrences of the day had made idle and inquisitive.

“Spread out both your hands,” said he, in a loud voice.

And he poured a handful of pence into them.

Govicum was grateful for his munificence.

Ursus whispered in his ear,—­

“Boy, go into the yard; jump, dance, knock, bawl, whistle, coo, neigh, applaud, stamp your feet, burst out laughing, break something.”

Master Nicless, saddened and humiliated at seeing the folks who had come to see “The Laughing Man” turned back and crowding towards other caravans, had shut the door of the inn.  He had even given up the idea of selling any beer or spirits that evening, that he might have to answer no awkward questions; and, quite overcome by the sudden close of the performance, was looking, with his candle in his hand, into the court from the balcony above.