Harlequin and Gelsomino are alone now, and Harlequin wraps Gelsomino, all trembling as he is, in the cloak which the Man of the World dropped there. They wait. Then comes poor Columbine creeping in, timid and ashamed. She half-dreads from the stern cloaked figure. She turns to her home to kiss her hand to it. But Harlequin with his wand lures her forward. And she goes, she goes. Then the wand is waved again, and the cloak is off. It is her husband; and she shrinks, this time in terror. He stands like a stone. She waits for a blow--for a curse. But suddenly he kneels among the petals of the forgotten rose. Is it he begging forgiveness of her? She has no thought for that; only that she always loved him. She bends to him, he takes her hands. He rises and she lifts her face. Their lips join. Alice and Uncle Edward draw the curtains. There! That's how they get back among the gods. * * * * * We don't travel to the next Scene too quickly. Alice has gone back to her little chair, and there she sits silent, her chin cupped in her hand, her eyes dreamy. Uncle Edward clears his throat noisily several times. Then he puts on his spectacles and looks at her. UNCLE EDWARD. Wool-gathering? ALICE. I love a love story. And she's such a darling, and always, all through the ages, all through what Clown calls the longest weekend on record, she falls in love and falls in love ...and falls in love. UNCLE EDWARD. Come, now, it's only storytelling. Don't let it get on your mind. Here, I want to speak to you. [Alice most obediently goes over to him, and he whispers to her. ALICE. [By no means in a whisper.] But perhaps George is busy with the next scene. UNCLE EDWARD. Never you mind. [Away she goes and through the curtains, leaving Uncle Edward to fill his pipe. But she's back almost at once and full of smiles. UNCLE EDWARD. [Anxiously.] Well, what did he say? ALICE. He said:--"I was thinking of having one myself, Miss Whistler." [And there follows her through the curtains a hand and arm holding a foaming pint of beer, which she takes across to her Uncle. The beer goes the way of all beer. UNCLE EDWARD. [After wiping his mouth, most politely, with the cheerfullest looking handkerchief you ever saw.] On the warm side. Go on with your bit. [Alice takes her talking place again, feet together, hands behind her. Then a long breath. ALICE. So the years went by. And they acted in Italy, and they acted in France, and they acted in England. Which is where we've got to now, in about seventeen hundred and something. All sorts of odd people got added to the company, and dropped out again on the journeys. In France they found Pierrot. But, being a Frenchman, he hated travelling; so they left him there. Nobody knows who Pierrot was ... at least I don't. UNCLE EDWARD. My dear, if we start on what we don't know, we'll be here all night ... and the next.