[Sighs and stoops over a bed of heliotrope.]
Queen
Why are you so melancholy, Josephine? You are standing in the portals of joy—I confess they do not appear very much to intrigue you.
Duchess
Possibly I am melancholy because I am not curious.
Queen [sarcastically]
No, rocks could hardly be curious about the waves or the wrecks washing against them. Come, Phedro.
[She goes. Prince bows after the Queen and then comes back to the Duchess.]
Prince
Beauty like yours is a penance for other women to regard. You are very like an exquisite temple in which there is no god. Yet I would not put a god in your temple.