LULU--[_Feeling by turns_ RODRIGO’S _arm and her own_.] If you only didn’t have such long ears---- FERDINAND--[_Entering, rear centre._] Doctor[8] Schön! RODRIGO--The rogue! [_Jumps up, starts behind the fire-screen, recoils._] God preserve me! [_Hides, lower left, behind the curtains._] SCHIGOLCH--Give me the key! [_Takes it and drags himself up the stairs._] LULU--[HUGENBERG _having slid under the table_.] Show him in! HUGENBERG--[_Under the front edge of the tablecloth, listening; to himself._] If he doesn’t stay--we’ll be alone. LULU--[_Poking him with her toe._] Sh! [HUGENBERG _disappears_. ALVA _is shown in by_ FERDINAND.] ALVA--[_In evening dress._] Methinks the matinée will take place by burning lamplight. I’ve---- [_Notices_ SCHIGOLCH _painfully climbing the stairs_.] What the ---- is that? LULU--An old friend of your father’s. ALVA--Quite unknown to me. LULU--They were in the campaign together. He’s awfully badly---- ALVA--Is my father here then? LULU--He drank a glass with him. He had to go to the stock market. We’ll have lunch before we go, won’t we? ALVA--When does it begin? LULU--After two. [ALVA _still follows_ SCHIGOLCH _with his eyes_.] How do you like me? [SCHIGOLCH _disappears thru the gallery_.] ALVA--Had I not better be silent to you on that point? LULU--I only mean my appearance. ALVA--Your dressmaker manifestly knows you better than I--may permit myself to know you. LULU--When I saw myself in the glass I could have wished to be a man--my man!... ALVA--You seem to envy your man the delight you offer to him. [LULU _is at the right_, ALVA _at the left, of the centre table. He regards her with shy satisfaction._ FERDINAND _enters, rear, covers the table and lays two plates, etc., a bottle of Pommery, and hors d’œuvres._] Have you a toothache? LULU--[_Across to_ ALVA.] Don’t. FERDINAND--Doctor Schön...? ALVA--He seems so puckered-up and tearful to-day. FERDINAND--[_Thru his teeth._] One is only a man after all. [_Exit._] LULU--[_When both are seated._] What I always think most highly of in you is your firmness of character. You’re so perfectly sure of yourself. Even when you must have been afraid of falling out with your father on my account, you always stood up for me like a brother just the same. ALVA--Let’s drop that. It’s just my fate--[_Moves to lift up the tablecloth in front._] LULU--[_Quickly._] That was me. ALVA--Impossible!--It’s just my fate, with the most trivial thoughts always to attain the best. LULU--You deceive yourself if you make yourself out worse than you are. ALVA--Why do you flatter me so? It is true that perhaps there is no man living, so bad as I--who has brought about so much good. LULU--In any case you’re the only man in the world who’s protected me without lowering me in my own eyes!