e with my unworthy hand
(Taking her hand)
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this--
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.'

Somerset stared. Surely in this comedy the King never addressed the
Princess in such warm words; and yet they were Shakespeare's, for they
were quite familiar to him. A dim suspicion crossed his mind. Mrs.
Goodman had brought a copy of Shakespeare with her, which she kept in
her lap and never looked at: borrowing it, Somerset turned to 'Romeo and
Juliet,' and there he saw the words which De Stancy had introduced as
gag, to intensify the mild love-making of the other play. Meanwhile De
Stancy continued--

'O then, dear Saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purg'd!'

Could it be that De Stancy was going to do what came next in the stage
direction--kiss her? Before there was time for conjecture on that point
the sound of a very sweet and long-drawn osculation spread through the
room, followed by loud applause from the people in the cheap seats. De
Stancy withdrew from bending over Paula, and she was very red in the
face. Nothing seemed clearer than that he had actually done the deed.
The applause continuing, Somerset turned his head. Five hundred
faces had regarded the act, without a consciousness that it was an
interpolation; and four hundred and fifty mouths in those faces were
smiling. About one half of them were tender smiles; these came from the
women. The other half were at best humorous, and mainly satirical; these
came from the men. It was a profanation without parallel, and his face
blazed like a coal.

The play was now nearly at an end, and Somerset sat on, feeling what
he could not express. More than ever was he assured that there had been
collusion between the two artillery officers to bring about this end.
That he should have been the unhappy man to design those picturesque
dresses in which his rival so audaciously played the lover to his,
Somerset's, mistress, was an added point to the satire. He could
hardly go so far as to assume that Paula was a consenting party to this
startling interlude; but her otherwise unaccountable wish that his own
love should be clandestinely shown lent immense force to a doubt of her
sinceri