THE PRINCESS.

SCENE I.

ACT I.

A PRESENCE-ROOM IN THE KING'S PALACE.

The KING seated, reading a letter, with an angry frown. A rich robe on the table before him. The PRINCE standing with CYRIL and FLORIAN.

KING (tearing up the letter). An answer vague as wind! He takes our gifts:

Sends this return (holding up the robe): grants that there did a kind

Of compact pass, a show of baby troth,

Betwixt his daughter and our son: he would

It might be kept to; but she has a will

And maiden fancies; loves to live alone
Among her women; certain, will not wed.
Not wed! I'll send a hundred thousand men

And bring her in a whirlwind.

PRINCE.

(Rends the robe in twain.) Let me go,

My father some gross error surely lies
In this report, this answer of a king,
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable.

FLORIAN. I have a sister at the foreign court,
Who moves about the Princess; she, you know,
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence;
He, dying lately, left her, as I hear,

The lady of three castles in that land:

Through her this matter might be sifted clean.

CYRIL. And take me with you too : in those strange lands, Trust me, I'll serve you better in a strait.

I grate on rusty hinges here.

You shall not; 'tis our quarrel: we ourself
Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead
In iron gauntlets: break the council up.

FLORIAN. One of her pretty fancies is, I hear,
A university for maidens; she

The college head; the tutors, Lady Blanche
And Lady Psyche, widows who had charge
Of her. I've heard her sire, old Gama, say
They fed her theories, in and out of place,
Maintaining that with equal husbandry
The woman were an equal of the man,
And only knowledge makes the difference.
They harped on this, and praised her lofty odes
About the coming woman; till at last

She begged of the good easy king to grant

To her a summer palace he had built

Hard by your father's frontier; where she went

All wild to found a college like a man's.

[Exit KING.

CYRIL. 'Tis said, they see no men; but make it death

For any male thing but to peep at them.

They send a woman-post for all their news.

The land, I understand, for miles about

Is tilled by women, daughters of the plough;
There is a plump-armed ostleress at the gate;
The stable-boys are wenches

PRINCE.

Hist! a thought

Has flashed, and must be clothed at once in act.

Remember how we three presented maid
Or nymph or goddess, at high tide of feast,
In masque or pageant at my father's court.
Send out and purchase female gear. Escaped
By night to Gama's palace; there empowered
With letters which he cannot well refuse,
We pass approved the border sentries; don
Our girl's attire betimes; admitted, crave
The proper academic garb, whate'er

It be; and so seek audience with the head,
The Princess, as arriving neophytes.
Once in that paradise, we test our fate.
Better such stratagem of love than war.

CYRIL. Ha ha! to see ourselves in such disguise
Would shake the midriff of despair itself

With laughter.

FLORIAN. Who shall be our tutor there?

CYRIL. Who but the prettiest, the Lady Psyche?

The towers of the imperial city in view. Enter KING GAMA and PRINCE ARAC walking together and earnestly conversing.

GAMA. She will not see us; not even you,

Nor me, nor her twin brothers, though we loved

And doted on her as a paragon.

'Twas all the fault of those two widows: they
Exiled our darling Ida from her home,

With talk of ladies' rights and woman's wrongs;
Nothing but this: my very ears were hot

To hear them. Women, so they taught her, were

As children; they must lose the child, assume
The woman then, sir, awful odes she wrote
About this losing of the child, and rhymes
And dismal lyrics, prophesying change

Beyond all reason: these the women sang,

And called them masterpieces: they mastered me.
ARAC. She flies too high, she flies too high! And yet
She asked but space and fair play for her scheme :
She pressed and pressed it on me. I myself,
What know I of these things? but, life and soul !
I thought her half right talking of her wrongs.

I

say she flies too high; 'sdeath, what of that?

If she but loved, and, Sire, she can be sweet

To those she loves — I would the Prince might have her.

GAMA. With all my heart: so said I to our guest
Himself, when yestermorn, with his two friends,
He parted from me, urging at the last

Her plighted word and mine: what could I else
But own the claim, and give him letters to her?
Though, truth to tell, I rate his chance almost
At naked nothing.

[Exeunt.

SCENE III.-A COLLEGE-HALL OF THE PRINCESS.

Statues, busts, scientific apparatus. Forms for students. A conspicuous inscription, LET NO MAN ENTER HERE ON PAIN OF DEATH. The PRINCESS is discovered seated in state, with two leopards couched beside her throne, and tomes and papers at her feet; the LADY BLANCHE at the desk. Enter PORTRESS, with paper, which LADY BLANCHE receives and reads.

"Three ladies of the Northern empire pray

Your Highness would enroll them with your own
And Lady Psyche's pupils."

PRINCESS (to PORTRESS). Go and bid.

Them hither. So begins the day to dawn [Exit POFI RESS. Where last to look and least to hope for it.

Three converts from the scornful enemy!

LADY BLANCHE. But why enrolled as Lady Psyche's pupils?

Must every novice, with crude choice, go sit

At her feet, learning only what before

Was taught in other rooms, half vacant now?

PRINCESS.

Be not so quick, dear Lady Blanche, to judge

These girlish preferences; but give them play,
And in due time, teacher or pupil, each

Shall find her like, and all a fitting meed

Of praise attain, as the good work moves on.

But here they come: receive them with due state.

(Re-enter PORTRESS ushering the PRINCE, CYRIL, and FLORIAN, who have assumed academic gowns of lilac and gold.)

PRINCESS (rising). We give you welcome: not without redound

Of use and glory to yourselves ye come,

The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime,

And that full voice which circles round the grave,

Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me.

What are the ladies of your land so tall?
CYRIL. We of the court.

PRINCESS. From the court? Then ye know the Prince! CYRIL. The climax of his age! as though there were One rose in all the world, your Highness that,

He worships only your ideal.

PRINCESS. We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear This barren verbiage, current among men,

Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment.