You need not crown me. Let me put it on As briefly as a gleam of Winter sun. I will not even warm it with my hair. Lear: You cannot have the nature of a queen If you believe that there are things above you: Crowns make no queens, queens are the cause of crowns. Gormflaith (slipping from his knee): Then I will take one. Look. [She tip-toes lightly round the front of the bed to where the crown hangs on the wall.] Lear: Come here, mad thing--come back! Your shadow will wake the Queen. Gormflaith: Hush, hush! That angry voice Will surely wake the Queen. [She lifts the crown from the peg, and returns with it.] Lear: Go back; bear back the crown: Hang up the crown again. We are not helpless serfs To think things are forbidden And steal them for our joy. Gormflaith: Hush, hush! It is too late; I dare not go again. Lear: Put down the crown: your hands are base hands yet. Give it to me: it issues from my hands. Gormflaith (seating herself on his knee again, and crowning herself): Let anger keep your eyes steady and bright To be my guiding mirror: do not move. You have received two queens within your eyes. [She laughs clearly, like a bird's sudden song. HYGD awakes and, after an instant's bewilderment, turns her head toward the sound; finding the bed-curtain dropt, she moves it aside a little with her fingers; she watches LEAR and GORMFLAITH for a short time, then the curtain slips from her weak grasp and she lies motionless.] Lear (continuing meanwhile): Doff it ... (GORMFLAITH kisses him.) Enough ... (Kiss) Unless you do ... (Kiss) my will ... (Kiss) I shall----(Kiss) I shall----(Kiss) I'll have you ... (Kiss) sent ... (Kiss) to ...(Kiss.) Gormflaith: Hush. Lear: Come to the garden: you shall hear me there. Gormflaith: I dare not leave the Queen ... Yes, yes, I come. Lear: No, you are better here: the guard would see you. Gormflaith: Not when we reach the pathway near the apple-yard. [They rise.] Lear: Girl, you are changed: you yield more beauty so. [They go out hand in hand by the doorway at the back. As they pass the crumpled letter GORMFLAITH drops her handkerchief on it, then picks up handkerchief and letter together and thrusts them into her bosom as she passes out.] Hygd (fingering back the bed-curtain again): How have they vanished? What are they doing now? Gormflaith (singing outside): If you have a mind to kiss me You shall kiss me in the dark: Yet rehearse, or you might miss me-- Make my mouth your noontide mark. See, I prim and pout it so; Now take aim and ... No, no, no. Shut your eyes, or you'll not learn Where the darkness soon shall hide me: If you will not, then, in turn, I'll shut mine. Come, have you spied me? [GORMFLAITH'S voice grows fainter as the song closes.] Hygd: