The Donkey. After all, my dear Baroness, you cannot be expected to take out all your schoolmistresses and their senior pupils on a leash!
Baroness. No, but I have particular reasons for wishing to look closely after her. (All this time she has been persistently looking round the room.) And in such a whirling crowd as this—
The Donkey. Let us lose ourselves in it, then! (He brays as they go out. The PRINCESS, masked and dressed in a costume of the time of Louis XV., comes forward accompanied by a Cavalier in a costume of the same period.)
Princess (continuing a discussion). And I say that if a king has such graces of mind and person as ours has, he may do anything he pleases.
Cavalier. Anything, Princess?
Princess. Anything that his mind prompts, provided that he do it beautifully. (A GENTLEMAN-IN-WAITING, dressed in a costume of the same period, approaches them.)
Gentleman-in-Waiting. I cannot discover him, your Royal Highness!
Princess. But he is here. He is here. And for a lady's sake. I am certain I am right.
Cavalier. But I asked one of the masters of the ceremonies, and he knew nothing about it.
Princess. Then it must have been one that has not been let into the secret.