ALVA. Why do you flatter me so? It is true that perhaps there is no man living, so bad as I--who has brought about so much good. LULU. In any case you're the only man in the world who's protected me without lowering me in my own eyes! ALVA. Do you think that so easy? (Schön appears in the gallery cautiously parting the hangings between the middle pillars. He starts, and whispers, "My own son!") With gifts from God like yours, one turns those around one to criminals without ever dreaming of it. I, too, am only flesh and blood, and if we hadn't grown up with each other like brother and sister-- LULU. That's why, too, I give myself to you alone quite without reserve. From you I have nothing to fear. ALVA. I assure you there are moments when one expects to see one's whole inner self cave in. The more self-restraint a man loads onto himself, the easier he breaks down. Nothing will save him from that except-- (Stops to look under the table.) LULU. (Quickly.) What are you looking for? ALVA. I conjure you, let me keep my confession of faith to myself! As an inviolable sanctity you were more to me than with all your gifts you could be to anyone else in your life! LULU. How do you come to think on that so entirely differently from your father? (Ferdinand enters, rear, changes the plates and serves broiled chicken with salad.) ALVA. (To him.) Are you sick? LULU. (To Alva.) Let him be! ALVA. He's trembling as if he had fever. FERDINAND. I am not yet so used to waiting ... ALVA. You must have something prescribed for you. FERDINAND. (Thru his teeth.) I'm a coachman usually-- (Exit.) SCHÖN. (Whispering from the gallery.) So, he too. (Seats himself behind the rail, able to cover himself with the hangings.) LULU. What sort of moments are those of which you spoke, where one expects to see his whole inner self tumble in? ALVA. I =didn't want= to speak of them. I should not like to lose, in joking over a glass of champagne, what has been my highest happiness for ten years. LULU. I have hurt you. I won't begin on that again. ALVA. Do you promise me that for always? LULU. My hand on it. (Gives him her hand across the table. Alva takes it hesitatingly, grips it in his, and presses it long and ardently to his lips.) What are you doing. (Rodrigo sticks his head out from the curtains, left. Lulu darts an angry look at him across Alva, and he draws back.) SCHÖN. (Whispering from the gallery.) And there is still another! ALVA. (Holding the hand.) A soul--that in the hereafter rubs the sleep out of its eyes.... Oh, this hand.... LULU. (Innocently.) What do you find in it?... ALVA. An arm.... LULU. What do you find in it?... ALVA. A body..... LULU. (Guilelessly.) What do you find in it?... ALVA. (Stirred up.) Mignon! LULU. (Wholly ingenuously.) What do you find in it?... ALVA. (Passionately.) Mignon! Mignon! LULU. (Throws herself on the ottoman.) Don't look at me so--for God's sake! Let us go before it is too late. You're an infamous wretch!