ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is a thinker; he is a sage. He gives women their due. LYRA: And he is a bachelor too--or consequently. ASTRAEA: If you like you may be as playful with me as the Lyra of our maiden days used to be. My dear, my dear, how glad I am to have you here! You remind me that I once had a heart. It will beat again with you beside me, and I shall look to you for protection. A novel request from me. From annoyance, I mean. It has entirely altered my character. Sometimes I am afraid to think of what I was, lest I should suddenly romp, and perform pirouettes and cry ‘Carnation!’ There is the bell. We must not be late when the professor condescends to sit for meals. LYRA: That rings healthily in the professor. ASTRAEA: Arm in arm, my Lyra. LYRA: No Pluriel yet! (They enter the house, and the time changes to evening of the same day. The scene is still the garden.) SCENE VI ASTRAEA, ARDEN ASTRAEA: Pardon me if I do not hear you well. ARDEN: I will not even think you barbarous. ASTRAEA: I am. I am the object of the chase. ARDEN: The huntsman draws the wood, then, and not you. ASTRAEA: At any instant I am forced to run, Or turn in my defence: how can I be Other than barbarous? You are the cause. ARDEN: No: heaven that made you beautiful’s the cause. ASTRAEA: Say, earth, that gave you instincts. Bring me down To instincts! When by chance I speak awhile With our professor, you appear in haste, Full cry to sight again the missing hare. Away ideas! All that’s divinest flies! I have to bear in mind how young you are. ARDEN: You have only to look up to me four years, Instead of forty! ASTRAEA: Sir? ARDEN There’s my misfortune! And worse that, young, I love as a young man. Could I but quench the fire, I might conceal The youthfulness offending you so much. ASTRAEA: I wish you would. I wish it earnestly. ARDEN: Impossible. I burn. ASTRAEA: You should not burn. ARDEN ‘Tis more than I. ‘Tis fire. It masters will. You would not say I should not’ if you knew fire. It seizes. It devours. ASTRAEA: Dry wood. ARDEN: Cold wit! How cold you can be! But be cold, for sweet You must be. And your eyes are mine: with them I see myself: unworthy to usurp The place I hold a moment. While I look I have my happiness. ASTRAEA: You should look higher. ARDEN: Through you to the highest. Only through you! Through you The mark I may attain is visible, And I have strength to dream of winning it. You are the bow that speeds the arrow: you The glass that brings the distance nigh. My world Is luminous through you, pure heavenly, But hangs upon the rose’s outer leaf, Not next her heart. Astraea! my own beloved!