CYRANO:
But ’tis sheer madness! Where in the fiend’s name did you get through?
ROXANE:
Where? Through the Spanish lines.
FIRST CADET:
—For subtle craft, give me a woman!
DE GUICHE:
But how did you pass through their lines?
LE BRET:
Faith! that must have been a hard matter!. . .
ROXANE:
None too hard. I but drove quietly forward in my carriage, and when some
hidalgo of haughty mien would have stayed me, lo! I showed at the window my
sweetest smile, and these Senors being (with no disrespect to you) the most
gallant gentlemen in the world,—I passed on!
CARBON:
True, that smile is a passport! But you must have been asked frequently to
give an account of where you were going, Madame?
ROXANE:
Yes, frequently. Then I would answer, ‘I go to see my lover.’ At that word
the very fiercest Spaniard of them all would gravely shut the carriage-door,
and, with a gesture that a king might envy, make signal to his men to lower
the muskets leveled at me;—then, with melancholy but withal very graceful
dignity—his beaver held to the wind that the plumes might flutter bravely, he
would bow low, saying to me, ‘Pass on, Senorita!’
CHRISTIAN:
But, Roxane. . .
ROXANE:
Forgive me that I said, ‘my lover!’ But bethink you, had I said ‘my
husband,’ not one of them had let me pass!