[He beckons to Columbine, and she dances on.
Eglantine.. So you are a chambermaid?
[Richardson curtseys. That's a poor way to describe it. It is a bob rustic indeed, but it veils Columbine very slightly. She is like one of the flowers of Keats, "all tiptoe for a flight." Into the room with the arch-valet and the very tired, elegant modish man she has come like the scent of mignonette through the window. His lordship's mind stirs even under its counterpane of cards and dice and buttered claret and snuff and fripperies, and one might think he heard the echo of a thrush's song sung when he was a boy (Unbelievable thought), and climbed trees.
And where do you come from?
Harlequin.. The country, my lord.
Eglantine.. I lived in the country once. There used to be things one picked in the hedges ...
[He has forgotten those, too.
Harlequin.. Blackberries?
Eglantine.. I don't think they were called blackberries. Things with a rough husky scent.
[Columbine's lips make a pretty pout. In another moment we should hear Prim--...