I see what it is. You don't like my knickerbockers.

MELISANDE (bewildered). Did you expect me to?

GERVASE. No. (After a pause) I think that's why I put 'em on. (She
looks at him in surprise.) You see, we had to come back to the
twentieth century some time; we couldn't go on pretending for ever.
Well, here we are--(indicating his clothes)--back. But I feel just as
romantic, Melisande. I want beauty--your beauty--just as much. (He
goes to her.)

MELISANDE. Which Melisande do you want? The one who talked to you this
morning in the wood, or the one who--(bitterly) does all the
housekeeping for her mother? (Violently) And badly, badly, badly!

GERVASE. The one who does all the housekeeping for her mother--and
badly, badly, badly, _bless_ her, because she has never realised what
a gloriously romantic thing housekeeping is.

MELISANDE (amazed). Romantic!

GERVASE (with enthusiasm). Most gloriously romantic. . . . Did you ever
long when you were young to be wrecked on a desert island?

MELISANDE (clasping her hands). Oh yes!

GERVASE. You imagined yourself there--alone or with a companion?

MELISANDE. Often!

GERVASE. And what were you doing? What is the romance of the desert
island which draws us all? Climbing the bread-fruit tree, following
the turtle to see where it deposits its eggs, discovering the spring
of water, building the hut--_housekeeping_, Melisande. . . . Or take
Robinson Crusoe. When Man Friday came along and left his footprint in
the sand, why did Robinson Crusoe stagger back in amazement? Because
he said to himself, like a good housekeeper, "By Jove, I'm on the
track of a servant at last." There's romance for you!

MELISANDE (smiling and shaking her head at him). What nonsense you
talk!

GERVASE. It isn't nonsense; indeed, indeed it isn't. There's romance
everywhere if you look for it. _You_ look for it in the old
fairy-stories, but did _they_ find it there? Did the gentleman who had
just been given a new pair of seven-league boots think it romantic to
be changed into a fish? He probably thought it a confounded nuisance,
and wondered what on earth to do with his boots. Did Cinderella and
the Prince find the world romantic after they were married? Think of
the endless silent evenings which they spent together, with nothing in
common but an admiration for Cinderella's feet--do you think _they_
didn't long for the romantic days of old? And in two thousand or two
hundred thousand years, people wi