Fortunately I have been able to dress quickly without exciting curiosity. My maid was summoned away this afternoon, to her father who is sick. [_Sinking on to the bench._] Still, these risks are considerable enough. QUEX. And yet you deliberately court them! DUCHESS. Great passions involve great dangers. The history of the world shows that. QUEX. But why now--now that circumstances are altered between us? why, on earth, do you play these hazardous tricks now? DUCHESS. I was determined to meet, to know, the girl with whom you are about to _ranger_ yourself, Harry. QUEX. Even that could have been arrived at in some safer way. DUCHESS. Ah, but you fail to see; it was the daring of this proceeding that attracted me--the romance of it! QUEX. [_Raising his hands._] Romance! still! DUCHESS. Always. It is the very blood in my veins. It keeps me young. I shall die a romantic girl, however old I may be. QUEX. You ought, you really ought, to have flourished in the Middle Ages. DUCHESS. You have frequently made that observation. [_Rising._] I do live in the Middle Ages, in my imagination. I live in every age in which Love was not a cool, level emotion, but a fierce, all-conquering flame--a flame that grew in the heart of a woman, that of a sudden spread through her whole organism, that lit up her eyes with a light more refulgent than the light of sun or moon! [_Laying her hand upon his arm._] Oh, oh, this poor, thin, modern sentiment miscalled Love--! QUEX. [_Edging away._] Sssh! pray be careful! DUCHESS. Ah, yes. But, dear Harry, I cannot endure the ordeal any longer. QUEX. The ordeal? DUCHESS. The prolonged discomfort, to which I have subjected myself, of watching your wooing of Miss Eden. I must go. QUEX. [_With ill-concealed relief._] Go! leave us? DUCHESS. I recognise how fitting it is that you should bring your wild, irregular career to a close; but after to-morrow I shall cease to be a spectator of these preliminaries. QUEX. [_His eyes sparkling._] After to-morrow! DUCHESS. Yes, I rejoin poor dear Strood on Friday. True, he has four nurses--he always had four nurses, if you remember? QUEX. [_Sympathetically._] Three or four. DUCHESS. But then, nurses are but nurses. [_Nobly._] I must not forget that I am a wife, Harry. QUEX. No, no--you mustn't forget that. DUCHESS. [_Gazing into his eyes._] And so, between you and me, [_placing her hands upon his shoulders_] it is over. QUEX. [_Promptly._] Over. DUCHESS. Finally, irrevocably over. QUEX. [_Freeing himself._] Absolutely over. [_Taking her hand and bowing over it solemnly._] Done with. [_He walks away._ DUCHESS. [_Moving slowly._] That is--almost over. QUEX. [_Turning sharply._] Almost? DUCHESS. We have yet to say good-bye, you know. QUEX. [_Returning to her, apprehensively._] We--we have said good-bye. DUCHESS. Ah, no, no! QUEX. [_Again bowing over her hand--with simulated feeling._] Good-bye. DUCHESS. [_Looking round._] What! _here_?