is the devil.

ALBERT

Come on, sonny, and play your piece to _me_. But I insist that the
hero must either marry in the end, or be carried off by the devil. In
either case you can go home quite satisfied when the curtain drops.
(_He goes out with Peter_)

CECILIA (_after a glance at Amadeus, starts to follow them_)

AMADEUS

Cecilia!

CECILIA (_turns back_)

AMADEUS (_passionately_)

Why didn't you show me the door, Cecilia, when you knew...?

CECILIA

Well, _did_ I know?... I have loved you, Amadeus. And all I wanted,
perhaps, was that the inevitable end should be worthy of our love--that
we should part after a final moment of bliss, and with a pang.

AMADEUS

With a pang, you say...? Do you really feel anything like that?

CECILIA (_coming close to him and speaking very gently_)

Why don't you try to understand me, Amadeus? I feel it just as keenly
as you do. But there is another thing I feel more strongly than you,
and it is well for us both that I do. It is this, Amadeus, that we have
been so much to each other that we must keep the memory of it pure. If
that was nothing but an adventure last night, then we have never been
worthy of our past happiness.... If it was a farewell, then we may
expect new happiness in the future ... perhaps.... (_She starts toward
the garden_)

AMADEUS

And that's our reward, then, for having always been honest to each
other!

CECILIA (_turning toward him again_)

Honest, you call it...? Have we always been that?

AMADEUS

Cecilia!

CECILIA

No, I can't think so any longer. Let everything else have been
honest--but that both of us should have resigned ourselves so promptly
when you told me of your passion for the Countess and I confessed my
affection for Sigismund--that was not honest. If each of us had then
flung his scorn, his bitterness, his despair into the face of the other
one, instead of trying to appear self-controlled and superior--then we
should have been honest--which, as it was, we were not. (_She walks
across the veranda outside and disappears into the garden_)

AMADEUS (_to himself_)

All right--then we were not honest. (_After a pause_) And suppose we
had been?! (_For a moment he seems to consider; then he goes to the
writing desk and puts the manuscript music lying there into the little
handbag; after a glance into the garden, he goes into his own room,
returning at once with his hat and overcoat; then he opens the handbag
again and pick