SCHIGOLCH--Patience, girl! Your worshippers won’t put you in alcohol, either. It’s “schöne Melusine” as long as it keeps reacting. Afterwards? They don’t take it at the zoölogical garden. [_Rising._] The gentle beasties might get stomach-cramps. LULU--[_Getting up._] Have you enough? SCHIGOLCH--Enough and some to spare for planting a juniper on my grave.--I’ll find my own way out. [_Exit._ LULU _follows him, and presently returns with_ DR. SCHÖN.] SCHÖN--What’s your father doing here? LULU--What’s the matter? SCHÖN--If I were your husband that man would never cross my threshold. LULU--You can be intimate with me. He’s not here. [_Referring to_ SCHWARZ.] SCHÖN--Thank you, I’d rather not. LULU--I don’t understand. SCHÖN--I know you don’t. [_Offering her a seat._] That is just the point I’d like to speak to you about. LULU--[_Sitting down uncertainly._] Then why didn’t you yesterday? SCHÖN--Please, nothing now about yesterday. I did tell you two years ago. LULU--[_Nervously._] Oh, yes,--hm! SCHÖN--Please be kind enough to cease your visits to my house. LULU--May I offer you an elixir---- SCHÖN--Thanks. No elixir. Have you understood me? [LULU _shakes her head_.] Good. You have the choice. You force me to the most extreme measures:--either act in accordance with your station---- LULU--Or? SCHÖN--Or--you compel me--I may have to turn to that person who is responsible for your behavior. LULU--How can you imagine that----? SCHÖN--I shall request your husband, himself to keep watch over your doings. [LULU _rises, goes up the steps, right_.] Where are you going? LULU--[_Calls thru the curtains._] Walter! SCHÖN--[_Springing up._] Are you mad? LULU--[_Turning round._] Aha! SCHÖN--I have made the most superhuman efforts to raise you in society. You can be ten times as proud of your name as of your intimacy with me. LULU--[_Comes down the steps and puts her arm around_ SCHÖN’S _neck_.] Why are you still afraid, now that you’re at the zenith of your hopes? SCHÖN--No comedy! The zenith of my hopes? I am at last engaged: I have still to hope that I may bring my bride into a clean house. LULU--[_Sitting._] She has developed delightfully in the two years! SCHÖN--She no longer looks thru one so earnestly. LULU--She is now, for the first time, a woman. We can meet each other wherever seems suitable to you. SCHÖN--We shall meet each other nowhere but in the presence of your husband! LULU--You don’t believe yourself what you say. SCHÖN--Then =he= must believe it, at least. Go on and call him! Thru his marriage to you, thru all that I’ve done for him, he has become my friend. LULU--[_Rising._] Mine, too. SCHÖN--And that way I’ll cut down the sword over my head. LULU--You have, indeed, put chains upon me. But I owe my happiness to you. You will get friends by the crowd as soon as you have a pretty young wife again.