ALLADINE.

I want to go in again.

ABLAMORE.

[Seeing that ALLADINE and PALOMIDES look at each other stealthily.] This is little Alladine who has come hither from the heart of Arcady....  Take hands ...  Does that astonish you, Palomides?...

PALOMIDES.

My father....

[PALOMIDES’ horse starts aside, frightening ALLADINE’S lamb.]

ABLAMORE.

Take care....  Your horse has frightened Alladine’s lamb....  He will run away....

ALLADINE.

No; he never runs away....  He has been startled, but he will not run away....  It is a lamb my godmother gave me....  He is not like others....  He stays beside me night and day. [Caressing it.

PALOMIDES (also caressing it).

He looks at me with the eyes of a child....

ALLADINE.

He understands everything that happens....

ABLAMORE.

It is time to go find your sisters, Palomides....  They will be astonished to see you....

ALLADINE.

They have gone every day to the turning of the road....  I have gone with them; but they did not hope yet....

ABLAMORE.

Come; Palomides is covered with dust, and he must be weary....  We have too many things to say to each other to talk here....  We will say them to-morrow....  They claim the morn is wiser than the evening....  I see the palace gates are open and seem to wait for us....

ALLADINE.

I cannot help being uneasy when I go back into the palace....  It is so big, and I am so little, and I get lost there still....  And then all those windows on the sea....  You cannot count them....  And the corridors that turn without reason, and others that never turn, but lose themselves between the walls....  And the halls I dare not go into....

PALOMIDES.

We will go in everywhere....

ALLADINE.

You would think I was not made to dwell there,—­that it was not built for me....  Once I lost my way there....  I pushed open thirty doors, before I found the light of day again....  And I could not go out; the last door opened on a pool....  And the vaults that are cold all summer; and the galleries that bend back on themselves endlessly....  There are stairways that lead nowhere and terraces from which nothing can be seen....

ABLAMORE.

You who were not wont to talk, how you talk to-night!...
          
                                                     [Exeunt.

ACT SECOND.

SCENE I.—­ALLADINE discovered, her forehead against one of the windows that open on the park.  Enter ABLAMORE.

ABLAMORE.

Alladine....

ALLADINE (turning abruptly).

What is it?