Romantic, isn't it? And just the colour moonlight ought to be.
[The music tells us this is real romance. Dark figures are flitting among the trees. Who are they? Gelsomino, Harlequin, Pantaloon. The Man of the World, wrapped dramatically in a great black cloak, arrives. "Arrives" is poor. He approaches. Pantaloon totters down to him. "Wait, and your love will come." He waits and his love comes, waddling most amazingly and wrapped in the tablecloth. We are sure it's Clown, and who wouldn't be? But the Man of the World--for a real Man of the World--is strangely deceived. He kneels to her adoringly; he rises and would embrace her passionately.
Alice.. "Love of my life," he says. "Let us away!"
[Harlequin waves his wand. The tablecloth has gone. It is Clown indeed, clownish and undoubted.
Yes, it's Clown, it's Clown, it's Clown! And Clown says:--"Whither away, fair sir?" And the Man of the World just withers.
[He grinds his teeth, does the Man of the World (if there is anything in the orchestra that will do it). And he goes, defeated. "Exit, baffled, the Man of the World."
Alice is breathless.
Harlequin and Gelsomino are alone now, and Harlequin wraps Gelsomino, all trembling as he is, in the cloak which the Man of the World dropped there. They wait. Then comes poor Columbine creeping in, timid and ashamed. She half-dreads from the stern cloaked figure. She turns to her home to kiss her hand to it. But Harlequin with his wand lures her forward. And she goes, she goes. Then the wand is waved again, and the cloak is off. It is her husband; and she shrinks, this time in terror. He stands like a stone. She waits for a blow--for a curse. But suddenly he kneels among the petals of the forgotten rose. Is it he begging forgiveness of her? She has no thought for that; only that she always loved him. She bends to him, he takes her hands. He rises and she lifts her face. Their lips join.
Alice and Uncle Edward draw the curtains.
There! That's how they get back among the gods.