Valsin. It was.
Eloise. What perception! I am faint with admiration. And no doubt it was her beauty that made her a Republican?
Valsin. What else?
Eloise. Hail, oracle! [She releases an arpeggio of satiric laughter.]
Valsin. That laugh is diaphanous. I see you through it, already convinced. [She stops laughing immediately.] Ha! we may proceed. Remark this, governess: a Beauty is the living evidence of man's immortality; the one plain proof that he has a soul.
Eloise. It is not so bad then, after all?
Valsin. It is utterly bad. But of all people a Beauty is most conscious of her duality. Her whole life is based upon her absolute knowledge that her Self and her body are two. She sacrifices all things to her beauty because her beauty feeds her Self with a dreadful food which it has made her unable to live without.
Eloise. My little gentleman, you talk like a sentimental waiter. Your metaphors are all hot from the kitchen.
Valsin [nettled]. It is natural; unlike your Eloise, I am really of "the People"—and starved much in my youth.
Eloise. But, like her, you are still hungry.