e not again those
flutterings in your heart?

DEA

Not more than I can bear. How good Gwymplane has been to me! I wish I
had been old enough to see him on the night he got lost, and found me
in the snow on my dead mother's breast, and God led us to you.

URSUS

I do not wish to think of that night. You were like a tiny, frozen
rose-petal, and he--he was so small himself it didn't seem possible
he could have carried you all the way and God----

[_URSUS covers his face with his hands and speaks in a low
voice._]

When you were both under the lamp I asked him what he found to smile
at. I asked him roughly to stop smiling.

DEA [_happily_]

Yes, Gwymplane always smiles, doesn't he? He must have a very
contented spirit. I wish that I could see his smile. How it provokes
other people to laugh!

[_URSUS looks at her pityingly, and pats her on the shoulder._]

I smile and weep a great deal lately over my love for Gwymplane, and I
am frightened about one thing.

URSUS

What is that?

DEA

That someone is going to make him unhappy.

URSUS

Gwymplane worships you. While you are singing and smiling I do not
think anything could make him unhappy.

DEA

I hope not. You know I feel that he has given his soul into my hands
and that I must take care of it as I would a little child. Yes, I feel
as if Gwymplane were my child, and yet something more than my child
that makes my heart bound and my song tremble into silence.

[_A nightingale sings in the distance._]

URSUS

My Dea!

DEA

Tell me, Ursus, Gwymplane is so wonderful. He--he attracts everyone
so. Does he never notice any especial person in the audience? Some one
whom he attracts?

URSUS

No, Dea, and you need never worry about that. Gwymplane will never
love or be beloved save by you.

DEA

Ah, how good it is to hear that! How beautiful tonight is! I would
like to sit forever like this, very near to you and talking of
Gwymplane.

[_A sudden voice almost at their elbow. Enter PHEDRO._]

PHEDRO

But everyone is talking of Gwymplane.

[_URSUS rising whispers to DEA to go._]

Why do you dismiss your beautiful daughter? Her pallor, her most
haunting stare, have already sown chaos in the heart of a certain
important personage.

URSUS

Leave me, Dea.

[_DEA silently exits._]

Who are you who visit us so abruptly?

PHEDRO [_whimsically_]

I think I am a cork upon very troubled waters.

URSUS