Thekla. Then there’d be a scene.

Gustav. Is he jealous, then?

Thekla. I should think he is—rather! [Noise in the room on the right.]

Gustav.[Passes in front of her toward the right.] Whose room is that?

Thekla.[Stepping a little toward the left.] I don’t know—tell me how you are now, and what you’re doing. [She goes to the table on the- left.]

Gustav. You tell me how you are. [He goes behind the square table on the left, over to the sofa. THEKLA, embarrassed, takes the cloth off the figure absent-mindedly.] No! who is that? Why—it’s you!

Thekla. I don’t think so.

Gustav. But it looks like you.

Thekla.[Cynically.] You think so? Gustav. [Sits down on the sofa.] It reminds one of the anecdote: “How could your Majesty say that?"

Thekla.[Laughs loudly and sits down opposite him on the settee.] What foolish ideas you do get into your head. Have you got by any chance some new yarns?