I hope this performance may make the Duchess forget herself for a few moments. She has seemed more than ordinarily bored today.
Phedro [murmuring]
To be so matchless as her Grace is as bad as being blind. It gives one nowhere to look.
Prince
She is perfection outside; inside—I do not know. Where is that distorted fellow that bounded away from me in the darkness just before dinner?
Phedro
Oh—Gwymplane—he is probably off somewhere charming the birds awake with his flute.
Prince [in reverie]
Yes, Josephine is magnificent. Yet I think there is a strange grimace upon the face of her soul. I am longing to find out what is at the bottom of her smile. Ah, I shall be the first to bathe in her delights. It is a most invigorating thought.
[He plucks a flower and places it in his buttonhole.]