LYRA: Now! my own dear uncle, save me from Pluriel. I have given him the slip in sheer desperation; but the man is at his shrewdest when he is left to guess at my heels. Tell him I am anywhere but here. Tell him I ran away to get a sense of freshness in seeing him again. Let me have one day of liberty, or, upon my word, I shall do deeds; I shall console young Arden: I shall fly to Paris and set my cap at presidents and foreign princes. Anything rather than be eaten up every minute, as I am. May no woman of my acquaintance marry a man of twenty years her senior! She marries a gigantic limpet. At that period of his life a man becomes too voraciously constant. HOMEWARE: Cupid clipped of wing is a destructive parasite. LYRA: I am in dead earnest, uncle, and I will have a respite, or else let decorum beware! (Arden returns.) ARDEN: The ladies are on their way. LYRA: I must get Astraea to myself. HOMEWARE: My library is a virgin fortress, Mr. Arden. Its gates are open to you on other topics than the coupling of inebriates. (He enters the house--LYRA disappears in the garden--Spiral’s audience reappear without him.) SCENE IV DAME DRESDEN, LADY OLDLACE, VIRGINIA, WINIFRED, ARDEN, SWITHIN, OSIER LADY OLDLACE: Such perfect rhythm! WINIFRED: Such oratory! LADY OLDLACE: A master hand. I was in a trance from the first sentence to the impressive close. OSIER: Such oratory is a whole orchestral symphony. VIRGINIA: Such command of intonation and subject! SWITHIN: That resonant voice! LADY OLDLACE: Swithin, his flow of eloquence! He launched forth! SWITHIN: Like an eagle from a cliff. OSIER: The measure of the words was like a beat of wings. SWITHIN: He makes poets of us. DAME DRESDEN: Spiral achieved his pinnacle to-day! VIRGINIA: How treacherous is our memory when we have most the longing to recall great sayings! OSIER: True, I conceive that my notes will be precious. WINIFRED: You could take notes! LADY OLDLACE: It seems a device for missing the quintessential. SWITHIN: Scraps of the body to the loss of the soul of it. We can allow that our friend performed good menial service. WINIFRED: I could not have done the thing. SWITHIN: In truth; it does remind one of the mess of pottage. LADY OLDLACE: One hardly felt one breathed. VIRGINIA: I confess it moved me to tears. SWITHIN: There is a pathos for us in the display of perfection. Such subtle contrast with our individual poverty affects us. WINIFRED: Surely there were passages of a distinct and most exquisite pathos. LADY OLDLACE: As in all great oratory! The key of it is the pathos. VIRGINIA: In great oratory, great poetry, great fiction; you try it by the pathos. All our critics agree in stipulating for the pathos. My tears were no feminine weakness, I could not be a discordant instrument. SWITHIN: I must make confession. He played on me too.