Phedro [deprecatingly]
I merely try to match my words against your silks and laces, my lord. But—her Majesty is approaching.
[Enter the Queen, a sharp-featured, neurotic-looking woman. One of her Cabinet is speaking earnestly to her and she is paying him scant attention.]
Minister
It is vitally necessary that we should discover upon what terms they would capitulate.
Queen
Yes, and they must be heavily taxed for holding out so long. Imagine other people presuming to be patriotic. It simply draws everything out to such an absurd length. Ah, how irritable it makes me to think. Phedro, where is the Prince, where is Prince Charles?
[During the last of her speech she withdraws her arm from the Minister's, who, seeing there is no further hope of holding her attention, withdraws respectfully and quite unobserved.]
Phedro