Gwymplane [surprised]
Madame?
Duchess
It must be wonderful to be you and wind through forests and across hills into new cities with your drummers beating attention for you, through lines of unknown faces, faces over whom you have a rare—a great power. For you can moisten them with tears—choke away their breath with laughter. And afterwards, when you have finished your performance and are walking on the outskirts of some alien city, tell me, do not certain ones steal out to you and tell you of the blasphemous fancies you have stirred awake in their souls?
Gwymplane
What are you saying, Madame, what are you not saying!
Duchess
[Leaning forward and taking one of his beautiful hands.]
O, Gwymplane, I am lonely. You can have no idea how lonely. Everything around me is so false to my desires, is so alien to what I feel myself to be.
Gwymplane