RAGUENEAU (in a low voice, smiling): Oh, ay! I see well enough, but I never will seem to look, fearing to distress them; thus I gain a double pleasure when I recite to them my poems; for I leave those poor fellows who have not breakfasted free to eat, even while I gratify my own dearest foible, see you? CYRANO (clapping him on the shoulder): Friend, I like you right well!. . . (Ragueneau goes after his friends. Cyrano follows him with his eyes, then, rather sharply): Ho there! Lise! (Lise, who is talking tenderly to the musketeer, starts, and comes down toward Cyrano): So this fine captain is laying siege to you? LISE (offended): One haughty glance of my eye can conquer any man that should dare venture aught 'gainst my virtue. CYRANO: Pooh! Conquering eyes, methinks, are oft conquered eyes. LISE (choking with anger): But-- CYRANO (incisively): I like Ragueneau well, and so--mark me, Dame Lise--I permit not that he be rendered a laughing-stock by any. . . LISE: But. . . CYRANO (who has raised his voice so as to be heard by the gallant): A word to the wise. . . (He bows to the musketeer, and goes to the doorway to watch, after looking at the clock.) LISE (to the musketeer, who has merely bowed in answer to Cyrano's bow): How now? Is this your courage?. . .Why turn you not a jest on his nose? THE MUSKETEER: On his nose?. . .ay, ay. . .his nose. (He goes quickly farther away; Lise follows him.) CYRANO (from the doorway, signing to Ragueneau to draw the poets away): Hist!. . . RAGUENEAU (showing them the door on the right): We shall be more private there. . . CYRANO (impatiently): Hist! Hist!. . . RAGUENEAU (drawing them farther): To read poetry, 'tis better here. . . FIRST POET (despairingly, with his mouth full): What! leave the cakes?. . . SECOND POET: Never! Let's take them with us! (They all follow Ragueneau in procession, after sweeping all the cakes off the trays.) Scene 2.V. Cyrano, Roxane, the duenna. CYRANO: Ah! if I see but the faint glimmer of hope, then I draw out my letter! (Roxane, masked, followed by the duenna, appears at the glass pane of the door. He opens quickly): Enter!. . . (Walking up to the duenna): Two words with you, Duenna. THE DUENNA: Four, Sir, an it like you. CYRANO: Are you fond of sweet things? THE DUENNA: Ay, I could eat myself sick on them! CYRANO (catching up some of the paper bags from the counter): Good. See you these two sonnets of Monsieur Beuserade. . . THE DUENNA: Hey? CYRANO: . . .Which I fill for you with cream cakes! THE DUENNA (changing her expression): Ha. CYRANO: What say you to the cake they call a little puff? THE DUENNA: If made with cream, Sir, I love them passing well. CYRANO: Here I plunge six for your eating into the bosom of a poem by Saint Amant! And in these verses of Chapelain I glide a lighter morsel. Stay, love you hot cakes? THE DUENNA: Ay, to the core of my heart!