QUEX.

And yet you deliberately court them!

DUCHESS.

Great passions involve great dangers.  The history of the world shows that.

QUEX.

But why now—­now that circumstances are altered between us? why, on earth, do you play these hazardous tricks now?

DUCHESS.

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.

DUCHESS.

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!

DUCHESS.

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.

DUCHESS.

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.] Sssh! pray be careful!

DUCHESS.

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

QUEX.

The ordeal?

DUCHESS.

The prolonged discomfort, to which I have subjected myself, of watching your wooing of Miss Eden.  I must go.

QUEX.

[With ill-concealed relief.] Go! leave us?

DUCHESS.

I recognise how fitting it is that you should bring your wild, irregular career to a close; but after to-morrow I shall cease to be a spectator of these preliminaries.

QUEX.

[His eyes sparkling.] After to-morrow!

DUCHESS.

Yes, I rejoin poor dear Strood on Friday.  True, he has four nurses—­he always had four nurses, if you remember?

QUEX.

[Sympathetically.] Three or four.

DUCHESS.

But then, nurses are but nurses. [Nobly.] I must not forget that I am a wife, Harry.

QUEX.

No, no—­you mustn’t forget that.

DUCHESS.

[Gazing into his eyes.] And so, between you and me, [placing her hands upon his shoulders] it is over.

QUEX.

[Promptly.] Over.

DUCHESS.

Finally, irrevocably over.

QUEX.

[Freeing himself.] Absolutely over. [Taking her hand and bowing over it solemnly.] Done with.