ms that may possibly inspire
direction.

QUEEN

Your sensations, Josephine, they have always been so much more acute
than your emotions. I wonder if you could not turn with a certain
surprising equanimity from regarding the marble forms of your Greeks
to the Gothic saints of wood and ivory, then one would detect incense
in the fold of your shroud instead of patchouli in the pleats of your
cambric. You know, probably you could find in the distortions of
religious mania a perfect _pendant_ to your taste for deformities in
life.

DUCHESS

You are cruel, and you are irreverent.

QUEEN

Ah, my dear, in that last epithet speaks your extreme desirability for
the vocation, superstition, which is nothing more nor less than fear
of reason, or possibly a certain instinct that the truth would make
everything look rather second class--if one is second class one's
self.

DUCHESS

I suppose it is not incumbent upon me to stand here in order that my
character inspire you with further Socratic comment.

QUEEN

Not at all, my dear sister; by all means seek your fauns and draperies
and forgive me for prattling on quite regardless of sowing the tragic
seed--_ennui_.

[_At this juncture it is only the intense refinement of the
DUCHESS which prevents her from falling into the unbecoming
posture of powerless invective. PHEDRO, who has listened to the
foregoing, presumes here to interrupt._]

PHEDRO

Your Majesty, have I your permission to retire?

QUEEN [_turning vaguely toward him_]

Certainly, certainly, Phedro. It must be extremely fatiguing to keep
on hitting, one after another, so many peculiar facts.

PHEDRO [_bowing low_]

My position in your Majesty's service is far too exhilarating to
permit of fatigue. To breathe is occasionally difficult [_his voice
lowers to something resembling a hiss_], consequently to rest does not
occur.

[_He glances about him as if at a group of neatly despatched
marionettes--a glare of furtive hatred distorting his features,
which is hastily veiled by his usual laconic humility._

_The QUEEN precipitates his departure with a wave of her hand, to
which he instantly submits._]

[_Exit PHEDRO._]

DUCHESS

[_Resuming in a voice of excessive boredom._]

Well, adieu, Charles, I suppose you will go on alternating between
vice and sentimentality until the curtain drops. You know, one reason
why you never attracted me?

PRIN