she goes._

FULVIA: My lord----

CHARLES: True, Fulvia--as titles go.

FULVIA: My lord----

CHARLES: Twice--but I'm not two lords.

FULVIA: To-night
I think you are. But quench your jests.

CHARLES: In tears?
And groans? Where borrow them?

FULVIA (_turning away_): So let it be.

CHARLES: Why do you say so be it and sigh as
Nought could again be well?

FULVIA: O----

CHARLES: Now you frown?

FULVIA: The hope you nurse, then, if it prove a pang
Of serpent bitterness----

CHARLES: Prove pang? I then
But for an "if" must pluck it from me?

FULVIA: So
I must believe.

CHARLES: Pluck it from me! Will you--
Now will you have me mouth and foam and thresh
The quiet in me to a maelstrom! This
Is mine, this joy; and still is mine, though I
To keep it must bring on me bitterness
And bleeding and--I rage!

FULVIA: Then shall I cease,
And say no more? No, you are on a flood
Whose sinking may be rapid down to horror.
And she--this girl! It has been long since you
Gave license rein upon your will, and spur.
Do not so now.

CHARLES: License?

FULVIA: She is all morn
And dream and dew: make her not dark!

CHARLES: You think--!

FULVIA: Wake her not, ah, not suddenly on terror!

CHARLES: On terror! (_Laughing._)

FULVIA: You've laughed nobler.

CHARLES: Fulvia,
Friend of my unrepaying years, dream you
I who in empire youth too soon forgot,
Who on my brow surprise the wafted dew,
The presages of age and death, shake not?

FULVIA: I knew not, but have waited oft such words.

CHARLES: Ah what! this hope, this leaping in me, this
White dawn across my turbulence and night,
From license?--Hear me. I have sudden found
A door to let in heaven on my heart.
Had I not laughed to see your dread upon it
Write "license," perilous had been my frown.

FULVIA: You will----?

CHARLES: Yes--yes! About her brow shall curl
The coronet! Her wishes shall be sceptres
Waving a swift fulfilment to her feet!
Her pity shall leave ready graves unfilled,
Her anger open earth for all who