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Page 43
[_In delicate protest._] Ah, my dear Duchess!
DUCHESS.
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!
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?
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