tifying arts. She has pronounced features, dark eyes, low
brows, black hair bound by a jewelled bandeau, and brought forward
in curls over her forehead and temples, long heavy ear-rings, an
open bodice, and sleeves puffed at the shoulders. A cloak and
other mufflers lie on a chair beside her.]

GODOY

The life-guards still insist, Love, that the King
Shall not leave Aranjuez.

QUEEN

Let them insist.
Whether we stay, or whether we depart,
Napoleon soon draws hither with his host!

GODOY

He says he comes pacifically.... But no!

QUEEN

Dearest, we must away to Andalusia,
Thence to America when time shall serve.

GODOY

I hold seven thousand men to cover us,
And ships in Cadiz port. But then--the Prince
Flatly declines to go. He lauds the French
As true deliverers.

QUEEN

Go Fernando MUST!...
O my sweet friend, that we--our sole two selves--
Could but escape and leave the rest to fate,
And in a western bower dream out our days!--
For the King's glass can run but briefly now,
Shattered and shaken as his vigour is.--
But ah--your love burns not in singleness!
Why, dear, caress Josefa Tudo still?
She does not solve her soul in yours as I.
And why those others even more than her?...
How little own I in thee!

GODOY

Such must be.
I cannot quite forsake them. Don't forget
The same scope has been yours in former years.

QUEEN

Yes, Love; I know. I yield! You cannot leave them;
But if you ever would bethink yourself
How long I have been yours, how truly all
Those other pleasures were my desperate shifts
To soften sorrow at your absences,
You would be faithful to me!

GODOY

True, my dear.--
Yet I do passably keep troth with you,
And fond you with fair regularity;--
A week beside you, and a week away.
Such is not schemed without some risk and strain.--
And you agreed Josefa should be mine,
And, too, Thereza without jealousy! [A noise is heard without.]
Ah, what means that?

[He jumps up from her side and crosses the room to a window,
where he lifts the curtain cautiously. The Queen follows him
with a scared look.

QUEEN

A riot can it be?

GODOY

Let me put these out ere they notice them;
They think me at the Royal Palace yonder.

[He hastily extinguishes the candles