THE KING. Well, what of that?
THE GYPSY. This, your majesty. There is only one man in your kingdom who can cope with this girl whom you call mad. Your servants cannot do it. As I passed by the room where she is imprisoned, I heard the soldier whose eye she blacked talking to her. He was saying that it was a great honour to have had a black eye from her hands, and he was begging her autograph. If she had desired to escape, she could have done so—he is her devoted slave. And the doctor who went to examine her as to her sanity has stayed to talk to her about horse-breaking. That, as you know, is his avocation; and he has found in her a woman who knows more about it than he does. He sits there like a man entranced. They are all putty in her hands.
THE KING. (impatiently) Get to the point.
THE GYPSY. I have said that there is only one man in the kingdom who can cope with her. And that man is your majesty's self.
THE KING. I?
THE GYPSY. Yes—you must go to her yourself.
THE KING. There's an idea. But what am I to do then?
THE GYPSY. Talk to her, make her your friend. Coax her secret out of her, and you will find that she is some madcap actress from a travelling company of mountebanks, who has done this thing in order to have the story told by the gazetteers and bring people to look at her. Get her to confess, and then let her story spread among the crowd—and the whole uprising that is now taxing the resources of the palace guard will dissolve in a burst of laughter.
THE KING. I will do it. If it is not a kingly duty, I shall at least accomplish it in a kingly manner. Thank you, my friend. But what is this?
THE MAID. (entering) Your majesty—