Monsieur Jean.

JEAN. _Attention! Je ne suis qu'un homme._

JULIA. Can't you sit still!--There now! Now it's gone. Kiss my hand
now, and thank me.

JEAN. [Rising] Miss Julia, listen to me. Christine has gone to bed
now--Won't you listen to me?

JULIA. Kiss my hand first.

JEAN. Listen to me!

JULIA. Kiss my hand first!

JEAN. All right, but blame nobody but yourself!

JULIA. For what?

JEAN. For what? Are you still a mere child at twenty-five? Don't
you know that it is dangerous to play with fire?

JULIA. Not for me. I am insured.

JEAN. [Boldly] No, you are not. And even if you were, there are
inflammable surroundings to be counted with.

JULIA. That's you, I suppose?

JEAN. Yes. Not because I am I, but because I am a young man--

JULIA. Of handsome appearance--what an incredible conceit! A Don
Juan, perhaps. Or a Joseph? On my soul, I think you are a Joseph!

JEAN. Do you?

JULIA. I fear it almost.

[JEAN goes boldly up to her and takes her around the waist in order
to kiss her.]

JULIA. [Gives him a cuff on the ear] Shame!

JEAN. Was that in play or in earnest?

JULIA. In earnest.

JEAN. Then you were in earnest a moment ago also. Your playing is
too serious, and that's the dangerous thing about it. Now I am
tired of playing, and I ask to be excused in order to resume my
work. The count wants his boots to be ready for him, and it is
after midnight already.

JULIA. Put away the boots.

JEAN. No, it's my work, which I am bound to do. But I have not
undertaken to be your playmate. It's something I can never become---
I hold myself too good for it.

JULIA. You're proud!

JEAN. In some ways, and not in others.

JULIA. Have you ever been in love?

JEAN. We don't use that word. But I have been fond of a lot of
girls, and once I was taken sick because I couldn't have the one I
wanted: sick, you know, like those princes in the Arabian Nights
who cannot eat or drink for sheer love.

JULIA. Who was it?

[JEAN remains silent.]

JULIA. Who was it?

JEAN. You cannot make me tell you.

JULIA. If I ask you as an equal, ask you as--a friend: who was it?

JEAN. It was you.

JULIA. [Sits down] How funny!

JEAN. Yes, as you say--it was ludicrous. That was the story, you
see, which I didn't want to tell you a while ago. But now I am
going to tell it. Do you know how the world looks from below--no,
you don't. No more than do hawks and falcons, of whom we never see
the back because they a