sical, sleeveless dress, white with a
red border, a bright wreath in her hair and a basket of flowers in her
hands.)

LULU. He doesn't seem to have noticed at all how cleverly you have used
your performers.

ALVA. I won't blow in sun, moon and stars in the first act!

LULU. (Sipping.) You disclose me by degrees.

ALVA. I knew, though, that you knew all about changing costumes.

LULU. If I'd wanted to sell my flowers this way before the Alhambra
cafe, they'd have had me behind lock and key right off the very first
night.

ALVA. Why? You were a child!

LULU. Do you remember me when I entered your room the first time?

ALVA. You wore a dark blue dress with black velvet.

LULU. They had to stick me somewhere and didn't know where.

ALVA. My mother had been lying sick two years then.

LULU. You were playing theater, and asked me if I wanted to play too.

ALVA. To be sure! We played theater!

LULU. I see you still--the way you shoved the figures back and forth.

ALVA. For a long time my most terrible memory was when all at once I
saw clearly into your relations--

LULU. You got icy curt towards me then.

ALVA. Oh, God--I saw in you something so infinitely far above me. I had
perhaps a higher devotion to you than to my mother. Think--when my
mother died--I was seventeen--I went and stood before my father and
demanded that he make you his wife on the spot or we'd have to fight a
duel.

LULU. He told me that at the time.

ALVA. Since I've grown older, I can only pity him. He will never
comprehend me. There he is making up a story for himself about a little
diplomatic game that puts me in the role of laboring against his
marriage with the Countess.

LULU. Does she still look as innocently as ever at the world?

ALVA. She loves him. I'm convinced of that. Her family has tried
everything to make her turn back. I don't think any sacrifice in the
world would be too great for her for his sake.

LULU. (Holds out her glass to him.) A little more, please.

ALVA. (Giving it to her.) You're drinking too much.

LULU. He shall learn to believe in my success! He doesn't believe in
any art. He believes only in papers.

ALVA. He believes in nothing.

LULU. He brought me into the theater in order that someone might
eventually be found rich enough to marry me.

ALVA. Well, alright. Why need that trouble us?

LULU. I am to be glad if I can dance myself into a millionaire's heart.

ALVA. God defend that anyone sh