Part 64 (1/2)

(Anxiously) Was I--was I all right?

MELISANDE. Oh, yes!

GERVASE (pleased). Ah! (He spreads himself a little and removes a speck of dust from his sleeve)

MELISANDE (thinking of it still). You were so brave.

GERVASE. Yes, I expect I'm pretty brave in other people's dreams--I'm so cowardly in my own. Did I kill anybody?

MELISANDE. You were engaged in a terrible fight with a dragon when I woke up.

GERVASE. Leaving me and the dragon still asleep--I mean, still fighting? Oh, Melisande, how could you leave us until you knew who had won?

MELISANDE. I tried so hard to get back to you.

GERVASE. I expect I was winning, you know. I wish you could have got back for the finish. . . . Melisande, let me come into your dreams again to-night.

MELISANDE. You never asked me last night. You just came.

GERVASE. Thank you for letting me come.

MELISANDE. And then when I woke up early this morning, the world was so young, so beautiful, so fresh that I had to be with it. It called to me so clearly--to come out and find its secret. So I came up here, to this enchanted place, and all the way it whispered to me--wonderful things.

GERVASE. What did it whisper, Melisande?

MELISANDE. The secret of happiness.

GERVASE. Ah, what is it, Melisande? (She smiles and shakes her head). . . . I met a magician in the woods this morning.

MELISANDE. Did he speak to you?

GERVASE. _He_ told _me_ the secret of happiness.

MELISANDE. What did he tell you?

GERVASE. He said it was marriage.

MELISANDE. Ah, but he didn't mean by marriage what so many people mean.

GERVASE. He seemed a very potent magician.

MELISANDE. Marriage to many people means just food. Housekeeping. _He_ didn't mean that.

GERVASE. A very wise and reverend magician.

MELISANDE. Love is romance. Is there anything romantic in breakfast--or lunch?

GERVASE. Well, not so much in lunch, of course, but---

MELISANDE. How well you understand! Why do the others not understand?