rough myself.

ERMYNTRUDE. Dare I ask what it is, Your Highness?

THE PRINCESS. I'm going to be married. I'm to be met here and married to
a man I never saw. A boy! A boy who never saw me! One of the sons of the
Inca of Perusalem.

ERMYNTRUDE. Indeed? Which son?

THE PRINCESS. I don't know. They haven't settled which. It's a dreadful
thing to be a princess: they just marry you to anyone they like. The
Inca is to come and look at me, and pick out whichever of his sons he
thinks will suit. And then I shall be an alien enemy everywhere except
in Perusalem, because the Inca has made war on everybody. And I shall
have to pretend that everybody has made war on him. It's too bad.

ERMYNTRUDE. Still, a husband is a husband. I wish I had one.

THE PRINCESS. Oh, how can you say that! I'm afraid you're not a nice
woman.

ERMYNTRUDE. Your Highness is provided for. I'm not.

THE PRINCESS. Even if you could bear to let a man touch you, you
shouldn't say so.

ERMYNTRUDE. I shall not say so again, Your Highness, except perhaps to
the man.

THE PRINCESS. It's too dreadful to think of. I wonder you can be so
coarse. I really don't think you'll suit. I feel sure now that you know
more about men than you should.

ERMYNTRUDE. I am a widow, Your Highness.

THE PRINCESS [overwhelmed]. Oh, I BEG your pardon. Of course I ought to
have known you would not have spoken like that if you were not married.
That makes it all right, doesn't it? I'm so sorry.

The Manager returns, white, scared, hardly able to speak.

THE MANAGER. Your Highness, an officer asks to see you on behalf of the
Inca of Perusalem.

THE PRINCESS [rising distractedly]. Oh, I can't, really. Oh, what shall
I do?

THE MANAGER. On important business, he says, Your Highness. Captain
Duval.

ERMYNTRUDE. Duval! Nonsense! The usual thing. It is the Inca himself,
incognito.

THE PRINCESS. Oh, send him away. Oh, I'm so afraid of the Inca. I'm not
properly dressed to receive him; and he is so particular: he would order
me to stay in my room for a week. Tell him to call tomorrow: say I'm ill
in bed. I can't: I won't: I daren't: you must get rid of him somehow.

ERMYNTRUDE. Leave him to me, Your Highness.

THE PRINCESS. You'd never dare!

ERMYNTRUDE. I am an Englishwoman, Your Highness, and perfectly capable
of tackling ten Incas if necessary. I will arrange the matter. [To the
Manager.] Show Her Highness to her bedroom; and then show Captain Duval
in here.

TH