The Sentimentalists | Page 6

a head, by repute.
ASTRAEA: For the world's work, yes.
LYRA: Not romantic.
ASTRAEA: Romantic ideas are for dreamy simperers.
LYRA: Amazons repudiate them.
ASTRAEA: Laugh at me. Half my time I am laughing at myself. I should regain my pride if I could be resolved on a step. I am strong to resist; I have not strength to move.
LYRA: I see the sphinx of Egypt!
ASTRAEA: And all the while I am a manufactory of gunpowder in this quiet old-world Sabbath circle of dear good souls, with their stereotyped interjections, and orchestra of enthusiasms; their tapering delicacies: the rejoicing they have in their common agreement on all created things. To them it is restful. It spurs me to fly from rooms and chairs and beds and houses. I sleep hardly a couple of hours. Then into the early morning air, out with the birds; I know no other pleasure.
LYRA: Hospital work for a variation: civil or military. The former involves the house-surgeon: the latter the grateful lieutenant.
ASTRAEA: Not if a woman can resist . . . I go to it proof-armoured.
LYRA: What does the Dame say?
ASTRAEA: Sighs over me! Just a little maddening to hear.
LYRA: When we feel we have the strength of giants, and are bidden to sit and smile! You should rap out some of our old sweet-innocent garden oaths with her--'Carnation! Dame!' That used to make her dance on her seat.--'But, dearest Dame, it is as natural an impulse for women to have that relief as for men; and natural will out, begonia! it will!' We ran through the book of Botany for devilish objurgations. I do believe our misconduct caused us to be handed to the good man at the altar as the right corrective. And you were the worst offender.
ASTRAEA: Was I? I could be now, though I am so changed a creature.
LYRA: You enjoy the studies with your Spiral, come!
ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is the one honest gentleman here. He does homage to my principles. I have never been troubled by him: no silly hints or side-looks--you know, the dog at the forbidden bone.
LYRA: A grand orator.
ASTRAEA: He is. You fix on the smallest of his gifts. He is intellectually and morally superior.
LYRA: Praise of that kind makes me rather incline to prefer his inferiors. He fed gobble-gobble on your puffs of incense. I coughed and scraped the gravel; quite in vain; he tapped for more and more.
ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is a thinker; he is a sage. He gives women their due.
LYRA: And he is a bachelor too--or consequently.
ASTRAEA: If you like you may be as playful with me as the Lyra of our maiden days used to be. My dear, my dear, how glad I am to have you here! You remind me that I once had a heart. It will beat again with you beside me, and I shall look to you for protection. A novel request from me. From annoyance, I mean. It has entirely altered my character. Sometimes I am afraid to think of what I was, lest I should suddenly romp, and perform pirouettes and cry 'Carnation!' There is the bell. We must not be late when the professor condescends to sit for meals.
LYRA: That rings healthily in the professor.
ASTRAEA: Arm in arm, my Lyra.
LYRA: No Pluriel yet!
(They enter the house, and the time changes to evening of the same day. The scene is still the garden.)

SCENE VI
ASTRAEA, ARDEN
ASTRAEA: Pardon me if I do not hear you well.
ARDEN: I will not even think you barbarous.
ASTRAEA: I am. I am the object of the chase.
ARDEN: The huntsman draws the wood, then, and not you.
ASTRAEA: At any instant I am forced to run, Or turn in my defence: how can I be Other than barbarous? You are the cause.
ARDEN: No: heaven that made you beautiful's the cause.
ASTRAEA: Say, earth, that gave you instincts. Bring me down To instincts! When by chance I speak awhile With our professor, you appear in haste, Full cry to sight again the missing hare. Away ideas! All that's divinest flies! I have to bear in mind how young you are.
ARDEN: You have only to look up to me four years, Instead of forty!
ASTRAEA: Sir?

ARDEN There's my misfortune! And worse that, young, I love as a young man. Could I but quench the fire, I might conceal The youthfulness offending you so much.
ASTRAEA: I wish you would. I wish it earnestly.
ARDEN: Impossible. I burn.
ASTRAEA: You should not burn.
ARDEN 'Tis more than I. 'Tis fire. It masters will. You would not say I should not' if you knew fire. It seizes. It devours.
ASTRAEA: Dry wood.
ARDEN: Cold wit! How cold you can be! But be cold, for sweet You must be. And your eyes are mine: with them I see myself: unworthy to usurp The place I hold a moment. While I look I have