_(The Duchess comes eagerly forward.)_...

(The Duchess comes eagerly forward.)

Duchess: (Her hand upon her heart) Oh! I am here, Harry!

Quex: (In delicate protest) Ah, my dear Duchess!

Duchess: Fortunately I have been able to dress quickly without exciting curiosity. My maid was summoned away this afternoon, to her father who is sick. (Sinking onto the bench) Still, these risks are considerable enough.

Quex: And yet you deliberately court them!

Duchess: Great passions involve great dangers. The history of the world shows that.

Quex: But why now--now that circumstances are altered between us? Why, on earth, do you play these hazardous tricks now?

Duchess: I was determined to meet, to know, the girl with whom you are about to ranger yourself, Harry.

Quex: Even that could have been arrived at in some safer way.

Duchess: Ah, but you fail to see; it was the daring of this proceeding that attracted me--the romance of it!

Quex: (Raising his hands) Romance! Still!

Duchess: Always. It is the very blood in my veins. It keeps me young. I shall die a romantic girl, however old I may be.

Quex: You ought, you really ought, to have flourished in the Middle Ages.

Duchess: You have frequently made that observation. (Rising) I do live in the Middle Ages, in my imagination. I live in every age in which Love was not a cool, level emotion, but a fierce, all-conquering flame--a flame that grew in the heart of a woman, that of a sudden spread through her whole organism, that lit up her eyes with a light more refulgent than the light of sun or moon! (Laying her hand upon his arm) Oh, oh, this poor, thin, modern sentiment miscalled Love--!

Quex: (Edging away) Sssh! Pray be careful!

Duchess: Ah, yes. But, dear Harry, I cannot endure the ordeal any longer.

Quex: The ordeal?

Duchess: The prolonged discomfort, to which I have subjected myself, of watching your wooing of Miss Eden. I must go.

Quex: (With ill-concealed relief) Go! Leave us?

Duchess: I recognize how fitting it is that you should bring your wild, irregular career to a close; but after tomorrow I shall cease to be a spectator of these preliminaries.

Quex: (His eyes sparkling) After tomorrow!

Duchess: Yes, I rejoin poor dear Strood on Friday. True, he has four nurses--he always had four nurses, if you remember?

Quex: (Sympathetically) Three or four.

Duchess: But then, nurses are but nurses (Nobly) I must not forget that I am a wife, Harry.

Quex: No, no--you mustn’t forget that.

Duchess: (Gazing into his eyes) And so, between you and me, (placing her hands upon his shoulders) it is over.

Quex: (Promptly) Over.

Duchess: Finally, irrevocably done.

Quex: (Freeing himself) Absolutely over. (Taking her hand and bowing over it solemnly) Done with.

(He walks away.)

Duchess: (Moving slowly) That is--almost over.

Quex: (Turning sharply) Almost?

Duchess: We have yet to say goodbye, you know.

Quex: (Returning to her apprehensively) We--we have said goodbye.

Duchess: Ah, no, no!

Quex: (Again bowing over her hand--with simulated feeling) Goodbye.

Duchess: (Looking round) What! Here?

Quex: (Humoring her) This romantic old garden! (Pointing to the statuary) These silent witnesses--beholders, it is likely, of many similar scenes! The--the--setting sun! Could any situation be more appropriate?

Duchess: But we are liable to be interrupted at any moment. The joint romance of our lives, Harry, ought not to end with a curt word and formal handshake in an exposed spot of this kind. (Sitting in the garden chair) Oh, it cannot, must not, end so!

Quex: (Eyeing her uneasily) Frankly, I see nothing else for it.

Duchess: I can’t credit it. Why, what was the second reason for my coming here?

Quex: Second reason?

Duchess: That our parting might be in keeping with our great attachment!

Quex: Impossible.

Duchess: Impractical?

Quex: In every way, impossible.

Duchess: (Taking his hand) Oh, don’t say that, dear Harry! Ah, the auguries tell me that what I ask will be.

Quex: (Omitting, in his anxiety, to withdraw his hand) The auguries?

Duchess: Fate--coincidence--call it what you please--foreshadows one more meeting between us.

Quex: Coincidence?

Duchess: (Intensely, in a low voice) Harry, do you remember a particular evening at Stockholm?

Quex: (Hazily) Stockholm?

Duchess: That evening upon which we discovered how much our society meant to each other!

Quex: (Vaguely, while he hastily recovers possession of his hand) At Stockholm was it--?

Duchess: You were sailing with us in the Baltic--you must recollect? Our yacht had put in at Stockholm; we had come to the Grand Hotel. Strood had retired, and you and I were sitting out upon the balcony watching the lights of the café on the Norrbro and the tiny steamboats that stole to and fro across the harbour. Surely you recollect?

Quex: Yes, yes, of course.

Duchess: Well, do you remember the brand of champagne you sipped while you and I sat smoking?

Quex: Good lord, no!

Duchess: “Félix Poubelle, Carte d’Or.” You remarked that it was a brand unknown to you. Have you met it since, Harry?

Quex: Not that I--

Duchess: Nor I till last night, at dinner. (Impressively) It is in this very house.

Quex: (With a slight shrug of the shoulders) Extremely probable.

Duchess: And do you remember how I was clad, that evening in Stockholm?

Quex: I am afraid I don’t.

Duchess: Couleur de rose garnie de vert. I have just such another garment with me.

Quex: Really?

Duchess: Do you remember in what month we were at Stockholm?

Quex: No.

Duchess: June--this month. Nor the day of the week?

Quex: It must be ten years ago!

Duchess: Wednesday. There stands the record in my diary.

Quex: Diary! Good heavens, you are not so indiscreet--!

Duchess: No, no--only the words, “warm evening.” Yes, it was upon a Wednesday. What is today?

Quex: Wednesday.

Duchess: (Rising) Harry, I want to see you sipping that brand of champagne once more, while you and I sit facing one another, silently, dreamily smoking Argyropulos.

Quex: (Negatively) Duchess--

Duchess: To end as we began! You have not the heart to refuse?

Quex: I--

Duchess: You do refuse?

Quex: I do.

(She passes him, and again sinks upon the bench.)

Duchess: (Her back towards him, her shoulders heaving) Oh! Oh!

Quex: I--I am profoundly sorry to be obliged to speak to you in this fashion.

Duchess: Oh, then I cannot go on Friday!

Quex: Not!

Duchess: No! No! No!

Quex: Believe me, it would be better for you, for me, for everybody--

Duchess: I cannot! (Producing a diminutive lace handkerchief) In the first shock of the news of your engagement--for it was a shock--one thought consoled me; throughout the time that has elapsed since then I have fed upon this same though--there will be a parting in keeping with our great attachment! And now, you would rob me even of that!

Quex: But--but--but--a solemn, deliberate leave-taking! The ceremony, of all others, to be carefully avoided!

Duchess: Not by me, Harry--not by me. I wish to carry, in my breast, from this house the numb despair of a piteous climax. I cannot drive away smugly from these gates with the simple feelings of a woman who has been paying a mere visit--I cannot!

Quex: My dear Sidonia--!

Duchess: (Decidedly) I say I cannot!

Quex: (To himself, with a little groan) Oh! Phew!

(He walks to and fro impatiently, reflecting. [Sophy, without her hat, comes quickly down the steps as if making for the table. Seeing Quex and the Duchess, she draws back, inquisitively.])

Quex: (By the Duchess’ side again, helplessly) Well, I--ha!--I--

Duchess: (Rising eagerly, laying a hand upon his arm) You will?

[(Sophy stoops down behind the dwarf cypresses.])

Quex: You are certain--certain that this would effectually remove the obstacle to your rejoining--(with a wave of the hand) on Friday?

Duchess: Why, do you think I would risk an anticlimax? (In an intense whisper) Tonight! (Louder) Tonight? (He hesitates a little longer--then bows in assent, stiffly and coldly. She gives an ardent sigh.) Ah--! (He retreats a step or two. She draws herself up with dignity.) Tonight then--

(She turns from him and glides away through the trees. He stands for a moment, a frown upon his face, in thought.)

Quex: (Suddenly, moving in the direction she has taken) No, no! Duchess--! (A gong sounds in the distance, he pauses, looking at his watch, angrily.) Ptshah!

Pinero, Sir Arthur Wing, The Gay Lord Quex, Project Gutenberg, 2005, pp. 110-123.