has every
reason to hate me.

QUEEN

No, I credit intuition, instinct that is always stinging past what one
wants to think and flinging some dismantled idol across one's feet.
Somehow, from looking down at a lie one can never look up to that
particular thing again.

PRINCE

It was the lie you minded more than what I did.

QUEEN

I think a truth, no matter of what kind, would have given me some
point of exhilaration upon which to try you out.

PRINCE

Oh, Anne, I do not understand you.

QUEEN

It is as well we found out. How jocosely casual we are about our
spirits. We tie them into some bondage of eternity for the security of
a night's lodging, and then wonder that life grows sour upon our
palate. [_she smiles over at CHARLES'S bewilderment_] Which means, in
the literal terms of those who credit reincarnation, that if we
married, those things you would have to do to keep your heart up would
cause your next showing to degenerate into a slight motion of slime at
the base of mountains. Think of the distance lost, Charles, for such a
little mincing forward step. Come, the morning wanes. Fortunately
there are things to do, no matter what cannot be done. I shall return
you half of your fortune, which, you will remember, is wholly
confiscate to the Crown, but upon the condition that you pass the
fleeting future from well under my nose. I could not bear to be
incessantly reading my past, which is printed all over you in large
letters. Really, Charles, you are a shifting mass of monuments to the
hope of a ridiculous person.

PRINCE

You have broken my heart. I may as well go, I suppose.

QUEEN

Thank God, I have a literal mind, for what you have said, as you have
said it, literally means, "I see you have found me out, so I suppose
there is no use wasting any more time around here."

PRINCE

You are impossible. You think too quickly.

QUEEN [_smiling broadly_]

Charles, Charles, go now, now, while I am smiling at you. It will be
nice to remember our saying good-bye and smiling.

[_She comes to him, takes his hand, looks up at him, but he will
not let his face be natural. She smooths his face, apparently
looking for some effect of Nature. Finally his features do relax
into a rather sheepish, furtive smile._]

Ah, now, I see you do not want to talk about it any more, and you do
want to get right away. There, go.

[_She pushes him toward the door, and out through it, and he is