Pauline. Is not the soft air of your native south—How pale he is!—indeed thou art not well. Where are our people? I will call them.
Mel. Hold! I—I am well.
Pauline. Thou art!—Ah! now I know it.
Thou fanciest, my kind lord—I know thou dost—
Thou fanciest these rude walls, these rustic gossips,
Brick’d floors, sour wine, coarse viands, vex Pauline;
And so they might, but thou art by my side,
And I forget all else.
Enter Landlord, the Servants peeping and laughing over his shoulder.
Land. My lord—your highness—Will your most noble excellency choose—
Mel. Begone, sir! [Exit Landlord laughing.
Pauline. How could they have learn’d thy rank?
One’s servants are so vain!—nay, let it not
Chafe thee, sweet prince!—a few short days and we
Shall see thy palace by its lake of silver,
And—nay, nay, spendthrift, is thy wealth of smiles,
Already drain’d, or dost thou play the miser?
Mel. Thine eyes would call up smiles in deserts, fair one.
Let us escape these rustics: close at hand
There is a cot, where I have bid prepare
Our evening lodgment—a rude, homely roof,
But honest, where our welcome will not be
Made torture by the vulgar eyes and tongues
That are as death to Love! A heavenly night!
The wooing air and the soft moon invite us.
Wilt walk? I pray thee, now,—I know the path,
Ay, every inch of it!
Pauline. What, thou! Methought
Thou wert a stranger in these parts? Ah, truant,
Some village beauty lured thee;—thou art now
Grown constant?
Mel. Trust me.
Pauline. Princes are so changeful!
Mel. Come, dearest, come.
Pauline. Shall I not call our people To light us?