STREPHON. If you make me believe that, I shall kill myself now.
THE NEWLY BORN. Oh no. I want you. I love you.
STREPHON. I love someone else. And she has gone old, old. Lost to me for ever.
THE HE-ANCIENT. How old?
STREPHON. You saw her when you barged into us as we were dancing. She is four.
THE NEWLY BORN. How I should have hated her twenty minutes ago! But I have grown out of that now.
THE HE-ANCIENT. Good. That hatred is called jealousy, the worst of our childish complaints.
Martellus, dusting his hands and puffing, returns from the grove.
MARTELLUS. Ouf! [He sits down next the Newly Born] That job's finished.
ARJILLAX. Ancients: I should like to make a few studies of you. Not portraits, of course: I shall idealize you a little. I have come to the conclusion that you ancients are the most interesting subjects after all.