[Music. Enter the King and Queen of Clubs, L.]
King of Hearts. Welcome, welcome, good Clubs. My best wishes, fair lady, my best wishes!
Queen of Hearts (to Queen of Clubs). Greeting to you, and pray take seat beside our cousin of Diamonds.
[At the entrance of the King and Queen of Clubs, the King and Queen of Hearts arise, as before. The King of Clubs bows to the King of Hearts, and kisses the hand of the Queen of Hearts. The Queen of Clubs courtesies. She then sits down in an arm-chair next to the Queen of Diamonds, the King of Clubs stands behind her, and the Knave of Clubs takes his place on the bench.]
Queen of Hearts. It is indeed a pleasure to have you here again. 'Tis now many a long day since I have seen you.
Queen of Clubs (fanning herself, and affecting an air of great weariness). Ah, dear lady of Hearts, you cannot conceive of my perplexities. What with tournaments and levees and audiences at large, the days do slip so swiftly by, giving me no pause for rest or recovery, that I do find myself ending the week ere I realize it to have begun.
Joker. Yet time, fair Queen, seems to have touched your comely brow with a light finger. The winged hours fly swiftly past you, but yourself dwell at the one sweet station of constant youthfulness.
Queen of Clubs (haughtily). So graceful a speech, Sir Joker, were worthy of a knight rather than of a fool.
Joker. It is for the listener to detect when the fool speaks foolishly. For he himself is too great a fool to judge of the burden of his speech.
Queen of Diamonds (superciliously, to Queen of Clubs). Methinks his words have a double edge.