You are so beautiful, Madame. Your loneliness only makes you more so. It lends the quality of a goddess to what is already earthly majesty.
[He is about to press his strange lips to her hands, when suddenly he remembers and resists.]
Duchess
Ah, you were going to kiss my hand. Why didn't you kiss it? [She stretches it out close to his mouth.] See—here—here it is, most soft and white.
[Gwymplane draws away, passing his hand across his brow. The Duchess leans toward him, almost over him.]
I am very lonely, Gwymplane. Give me a few moments of forgetfulness. O, tell me about your life—tell me about what has happened to you.
[She lays her hand upon his shoulder. Gwymplane takes it, kisses it, and looks up at her with flaming eyes and chalk-pale face.]
Ah, that is nice! The touch of your lips chills, burns me with forgetfulness. The touch of your lips is like a tide hushing, sucking my wakefulness down into depths of terrible oblivion. O, listen, you are grotesque—your limbs are like the coils of nightmare. I love you because you are so grotesque—because upon your face is stamped the contorted beauty of your mind—your mind that is surely as amazing as your face. O, Gwymplane, tell me of what you have thought, tell me of what you are thinking.
Gwymplane
[Who is led into rapture by her words, kneels and suddenly kisses her feet.]