CONFUCIUS [into the telephone] The President will receive the Domestic Minister at once.
They watch the door in silence for the entrance of the Domestic Minister.
BURGE-LUBIN [suddenly, to the Archbishop] I suppose you have been married over and over again.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Once. You do not make vows until death when death is three hundred years off.
They relapse into uneasy silence. The Domestic Minister enters. She is a handsome woman, apparently in the prime of life, with elegant, tense, well held-up figure, and the walk of a goddess. Her expression and deportment are grave, swift, decisive, awful, unanswerable. She wears a Dianesque tunic instead of a blouse, and a silver coronet instead of a gold fillet. Her dress otherwise is not markedly different from that of the men, who rise as she enters, and incline their heads with instinctive awe. She comes to the vacant chair between Barnabas and Confucius.
BURGE-LUBIN [resolutely genial and gallant] Delighted to see you, Mrs Lutestring.
CONFUCIUS. We are honored by your celestial presence.
BARNABAS. Good day, madam.
THE ARCHBISHOP. I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before. I am the Archbishop of York.
MRS LUTESTRING. Surely we have met, Mr Archbishop. I remember your face. We—[she checks herself suddenly] Ah, no: I remember now: it was someone else. [She sits down]. They all sit down.