The Gay Lord Quex - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
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.
