ou loiter, Master Player?
Were you not paid enough?

MICHAEL
No.--One more look.

BARBARA
Here, then.--Still not enough?

MICHAEL

No! One more smile.

BARBARA
[agitated ]
Why would you have me smile?

MICHAEL
[passionately]
Oh, when you smiled,
It was--it was like sunlight coming through
Some window there,
[Pointing to the Minster]
--some vision of Our Lady.
[She drops her flowers.--He picks them up
and gives them back slowly.

BARBARA
Who are you? You are some one in disguise.

MICHAEL
[bitterly]
A man--that passes for a mountebank.

BARBARA
[eagerly]
I knew!

MICHAEL
What then?

BARBARA
Thou art of noble birth.
'T is some disguise, this playing with the fire!

MICHAEL
Yes.--For to-day, I lord it with the fire.
But it hath burned me, here.
[Touching his breast.]
[Overcome for the moment, she draws away.--
The PIPER, coming down, speaks stealthily to MICHAEL,
who is still gazing.

PIPER
For all our sakes!
There is bad weather breeding.--Take to thy heels.

[BARBARA turns back to see MICHAEL withdrawing reluctantly,
and throws a rose to him with sudden gayety.

BARBARA
Farewell to you, Sword-Swallower!--farewell!

MICHAEL
[looking back]
Farewell to you, my Lady, in-the-Moon.
[Exit.
[JAN clings once more to the PIPER, while the other children
hang about. VERONIKA calls to her boy, from the steps.

VERONIKA
Darling.--

PIPER
[drawing nearer]
Is this your Boy?

VERONIKA
Ay, he is mine;
My only one. He loved thy piping so.

PIPER
And I loved his.

HANS' WIFE
[stridently]
Poor little boy! He's lame!

PIPER
'T is all of us are lame! But he, he flies.

VERONIKA
Jan, stay here if you will, and hear the pipe,
At Church-time.

PIPER
[to him]
Wilt thou?

JAN
[softly]
Mother lets me stay
Here with the Lonely Man.

PIPER
The Lonely Man?
[JAN points to the Christ in the Shrine. VERONIKA crosses herself.
The PIPER looks long at the little boy.

VERONIKA
He always calls Him so.

PIPER
And so would I.

VERONIKA
It grieves him that the Head is always bowed,
And stricken. But he loves more to be here
Than yonder in the church.

PIPER
And so do I.

VERONIKA
What would you, darling, with the Lonely Man?
What do you wait to see?

JAN
[shyly]
To see Him smile.

[The women murmur. The PIPER comes down
further to speak to VERONIKA.

PIPER
You are some foreign woman. Are you not?
Never from Hamelin!

VERONIKA