ASTRAEA: And all the while I am a manufactory of gunpowder in this quiet old-world Sabbath circle of dear good souls, with their stereotyped interjections, and orchestra of enthusiasms; their tapering delicacies: the rejoicing they have in their common agreement on all created things. To them it is restful. It spurs me to fly from rooms and chairs and beds and houses. I sleep hardly a couple of hours. Then into the early morning air, out with the birds; I know no other pleasure. LYRA: Hospital work for a variation: civil or military. The former involves the house-surgeon: the latter the grateful lieutenant. ASTRAEA: Not if a woman can resist . . . I go to it proof-armoured. LYRA: What does the Dame say? ASTRAEA: Sighs over me! Just a little maddening to hear. LYRA: When we feel we have the strength of giants, and are bidden to sit and smile! You should rap out some of our old sweet-innocent garden oaths with her--'Carnation! Dame!' That used to make her dance on her seat.--'But, dearest Dame, it is as natural an impulse for women to have that relief as for men; and natural will out, begonia! it will!' We ran through the book of Botany for devilish objurgations. I do believe our misconduct caused us to be handed to the good man at the altar as the right corrective. And you were the worst offender. ASTRAEA: Was I? I could be now, though I am so changed a creature. LYRA: You enjoy the studies with your Spiral, come! ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is the one honest gentleman here. He does homage to my principles. I have never been troubled by him: no silly hints or side-looks--you know, the dog at the forbidden bone. LYRA: A grand orator. ASTRAEA: He is. You fix on the smallest of his gifts. He is intellectually and morally superior. LYRA: Praise of that kind makes me rather incline to prefer his inferiors. He fed gobble-gobble on your puffs of incense. I coughed and scraped the gravel; quite in vain; he tapped for more and more. ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is a thinker; he is a sage. He gives women their due. LYRA: And he is a bachelor too--or consequently. ASTRAEA: If you like you may be as playful with me as the Lyra of our maiden days used to be. My dear, my dear, how glad I am to have you here! You remind me that I once had a heart. It will beat again with you beside me, and I shall look to you for protection. A novel request from me. From annoyance, I mean. It has entirely altered my character. Sometimes I am afraid to think of what I was, lest I should suddenly romp, and perform pirouettes and cry 'Carnation!' There is the bell. We must not be late when the professor condescends to sit for meals. LYRA: That rings healthily in the professor. ASTRAEA: Arm in arm, my Lyra. LYRA: No Pluriel yet! (They enter the house, and the time changes to evening of the same day. The scene is still the garden.) SCENE VI