Part 8 (2/2)

HARLEQUIN. Her home, my lord.

EGLANTINE. I must keep this safe, Quin.

[Quite tenderly--though why?--he lays the parchment by his side.

CLOWN. Damme, I want another gla.s.s to pull me over the shock, old Talon.

PANTALOON. An excellent wine. It reminds me of the time ...

EGLANTINE. [Watch in hand.] Let it remind us all of the time. Mr. Talon, Lady Clarissa's lawyers expect you at nine with the bonds for twelve thousand five hundred pounds. Don't let me detain you.

CLOWN. Lady Clarissa! But that's the very name...

EGLANTINE. Stay, George, and bring me to the church and tell me your story on the way. You'll pardon me, my wedding suit awaits me.

[He goes out. Be-wigged, rouged, be-powdered, his dressing-gown gathered about him; like a splendid vision he fades into his bedroom.

PANTALOON. I must go.

CLOWN. No, not without a final gla.s.s. We've settled the Madeira, but there's still the Port.

[Harlequin waves a powder puff. And the empty decanter is full and the full one empty.

PANTALOON. No, no, Sir George, we've settled the Port, but there's still the Madeira.

[Harlequin waves. And the empty is empty again. But the full one is empty, too.

CLOWN. Oh, Joey, Joey, we've settled them both.

[There they stand, all three, grouped as we know them so well.

ALICE. Look, oh, look! There's the Harlequinade!

PANTALOON. I must go.

[And he goes.

EGLANTINE. [From within.] Quin!

HARLEQUIN. My lord.

[And he vanishes.

EGLANTINE. And now for your story, George, if while I dress, it will carry through a door.

[The scene you cannot see is, of course, of tremendous importa A Beau dressing for his wedding! It couldn't be done upon the stage because no audience roughly coming in from their dinner ridiculously dressed in black clawhammer coats could appreciate the niceties of the toilette of a Beau, so far, so very far removed from the uncultured vulgarities of the Nut. They say that even the very silk-worms who span to make him silk for his coats are set aside from the silk-worms who spin silk for persons of grosser habit. And every flower embroidered on his coat is perfumed with its proper scent. And a girl has gone blind through making the filmy froth of lace about his throat.

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