ng a mud-sling in your silk swallow-tail.
Perhaps you forget a courtier's principal duty should be the culture
of tact, and tact is nothing whatever but helping me exaggerate my
humours until I tire of them.

2D COURTIER

Indeed, indeed, Madame, your Majesty's brilliance blinds my eyes with
humility.

[_Enter PRINCE CHARLES, a slender, exotic-looking gentleman._]

PRINCE

Dear Cousin, how delicious you are looking--so royal and alert. [_He
bends over her hand._] Ah! [_His vitality seems suddenly to leave him
at the thought._] I have just been trying to lessen Josephine's
habitual _ennui_ by making her my victim at croquet.

QUEEN

[_With a slight lounge into sentimentality._]

I am sure she, like many others, is easily your victim--at croquet.
But come, let us be alone, let us dismiss this chain of faces, they
confine my thoughts. I would like to talk well, I would like to talk
fantastically, that is, I wish you would think of something original
for tonight's entertainment.

[_She signals to the courtiers that they may leave._]

After all it is the prelude to your nuptials. Let us think of
something to surprise Josephine.

PRINCE

To _surprise_ Josephine! But nothing could surprise Josephine.

QUEEN

You are probably mistaken. I believe any reality would surprise her.
All her life she has watched life passing in a mirror. She has never
touched a thing--I think she has very curious hands. But let us----

[_She perceives that some of the courtiers are still lingering
about. Turns to them._]

I have several times intimated that you may disperse.

[_Courtiers go out swiftly._]

[_Looking at Prince wistfully._] You can imagine that I am a little
sad today. There is a mist between me and everything else, the gardens
are dull, the flowers have lost their fragrance. A sirocco seems
blowing up from the graves of all young people who have never been
given a chance. Tell me, do you care much for Josephine?

CHARLES [_pompously_]

My Cousin, my Sovereign, this marriage has been arranged, I presume in
lieu of my lost brother, the Prince of Vaucluse, and apparently in
order further to quilt your Majesty's exchequer.

QUEEN [_interrupting him_]

Your poor brother; your poor brother; if it had been he, how much
heartbreak I would have been spared.

PRINCE

Which means, your Majesty?

QUEEN

That I have been talking to myself, and you have been listening, which
is ungal