DIEGO (_very slowly_)
Thinking me what, my Lord?
DUKE (_lightly, but with effort_)
Less of a little Sir Paragon of Virtue than a dear child, who is only a child, must be.
DIEGO
It is better, perhaps, that your Highness should be certain of my limitations----But I crave your Highness's pardon. I had meant to say that being a waif myself, pure gutter-bred, I have known, though young, more Magdalens than you, my Lord.
They are, in a way, my sisters; and had I been a woman, I should, likely enough, have been one myself.
DUKE
You mean, Diego?
DIEGO
I mean, that knowing them well, I also know that women such as your Highness has described, occasionally learn to love most truly. Nay, let me finish, my Lord; I was not going to repeat a mere sentimental commonplace. Briefly then, that such women, being expert in love, sometimes understand, quicker than virtuous dames brought up to heroism, when love for them is cloyed. They can walk out of a man's house or life with due alacrity, being trained to such flittings. Or, recognising the first signs of weariness before 'tis known to him who feels it, they can open the door for the other--hand him the clue of the labyrinth with a fine theatric gesture!--But I crave your Highness's pardon for enlarging on this theme.
DUKE
Thou speakest Diego, as if thou hadst a mind to wound thy Master. Is this, my friend, the reward of my confiding in thee, even if tardily?
DIEGO
I stand rebuked, my Lord. But, in my own defence----how shall I say it?----Your Highness has a manner to-night which disconcerts me by its novelty; a saying things and then unsaying them; suggesting and then, somehow, treading down the suggestion like a spark of your lightning. Lovers, I have been told, use such a manner to revive their flagging feeling by playing on the other one's. Even in so plain and solid a thing as friendship, such ways--I say it subject to your Highness's displeasure--are dangerous. But in love, I have known cases where, carried to certain lengths, such ways of speaking undermined a woman's faith and led her to desperate things.
Women, despite their strength, which often surprises us, are brittle creatures. Did you never, perhaps, make trial of this----Magdalen, with----
DUKE
With what? Good God, Diego, 'tis I who ask thy pardon; and thou sheddest a dreadful light upon the past. But it is not possible. I am not such a cur that, after all she did, after all she was,--my life saved by her audacity a hundred times, made rich and lovely by her love, her wit, her power,--that I could ever have whimpered for my freedom, or made her suspect I wanted it more than I wanted her? Is it possible, Diego?
DIEGO (_slowly_)
Why more than you wanted her? She may have thought the two compatible.
DUKE
Never. First, because my escape could not be compassed save by her staying behind; and then because---she knew, in fact, what thing I was, or must become, once set at liberty.
DIEGO (_after a pause_)
I see. You mean, my Lord, that you being Duke of Mantua, while she----If she knew that; knew it not merely as a fact, but as one knows the full savour of grief,--well, she was indeed the paragon you think; one might indeed say, bating one point, a virtuous woman.
DUKE
Thou hast understood, dear Diego, and I thank thee for it.
DIEGO
But I fear, my Lord, she did not know these things. Such as she, as yourself remarked, are not trained to conceive of duty, even in others. Passion moves them; and they believe in passion. You loved her; good. Why then, at Mantua as in Barbary. No, my dear Master, believe me; she had seen your love was turning stale, and set you free, rather than taste its staleness. Passion, like duty, has its pride; and even we waifs, as gypsies, have our point of honour.
DUKE
Stale! My love grown stale! You make me laugh, boy, instead of angering. Stale! You never knew her. She was not like a song--even your sweetest song--which, heard too often, cloys, its phrases dropping to senseless notes. She was like music,--the whole art: new modes, new melodies, new rhythms, with every day and hour, passionate or sad, or gay, or very quiet; more wondrous notes than in thy voice; and more strangely sweet, even when they grated, than the tone of those newfangled fiddles, which wound the ear and pour balm in, they make now at Cremona.
DIEGO
You loved her then, sincerely?
DUKE
Methinks it may be Diego now, tormenting his Master with needless questions. Loved her, boy! I love her.
_A long pause_. Diego _has covered his face, with a gesture as if about to speak. But the moon has suddenly risen from behind the poplars, and put scales of silver light upon the ripples of the lake, and a pale luminous mist around the palace. As the light invades the terrace, a sort of chill has come upon both speakers; they walk up and down further from one another_.
DIEGO
A marvellous story, dear Master. And I thank you from my heart for having told it me. I always loved you, and I thought I knew you. I know you better still, now. You are--a most magnanimous prince.
DUKE
Alas, dear lad, I am but a poor prisoner of my duties; a poorer prisoner, and a sadder far, than there in Barbary----O Diego, how I have longed for her! How deeply I still long, sometimes! But I open my eyes, force myself to stare reality in the face, whenever her image comes behind closed lids, driving her from me----And to end my confession. At the beginning, Diego, there seemed in thy voice and manner something of _her_; I saw her sometimes in thee, as children see the elves they fear and hope for in stains on walls and flickers on the path. And all thy wondrous power, thy miraculous cure--nay, forgive what seems ingratitude--was due, Diego, to my sick fancy making me see glances of her in thy eyes and hear her voice in thine. Not music but love, love's delusion, was what worked my cure.
DIEGO
Do you speak truly, Master? Was it so? And now?
DUKE
Now, dear lad, I am cured--completely; I know bushes from ghosts; and I know thee, dearest friend, to be Diego.
DIEGO
When these imaginations still held you, my Lord, did it ever happen that you wondered: what if the bush had been a ghost; if Diego had turned into--what was she called?----
DUKE
Magdalen. My fancy never went so far, good Diego. There was a grain of reason left. But if it had----Well, I should have taken Magdalen's hand, and said, "Welcome, dear sister. This is a world of spells; let us repeat some. Become henceforth my brother; be the Duke of Mantua's best and truest friend; turn into Diego, Magdalen."
_The_ DUKE _presses_ DIEGO'S _arm, and, letting it go, walks away into the moonlight with an enigmatic air. A long pause_.
Hark, they are singing within; the idle pages making songs to their ladies' eyebrows. Shall we go and listen?
(_They walk in the direction of the palace_.)
And (_with a little hesitation_) that makes me say, Diego, before we close this past of mine, and bury it for ever in our silence, that there is a little Moorish song, plaintive and quaint, she used to sing, which some day I will write down, and thou shalt sing it to me--on my deathbed.