L a d y (quickly removing her hands) : Oh, how unkindly you are speaking to me! (She takes her handkerchief from her fichu.)

You frighten me. (She touches her eyes as if to wipe away a tear.)

N a p o l e o n : I see you don't know me, madam, or you would save yourself the trouble of pretending to cry.

L a d y (producing an effect of smiling through her tears): Yes, I do know you. You are the famous General Buonaparte.4

N a p o l e o n (angrily): The papers, if you please.

L a d y : But I assure you — (He snatches the handkerchief rudely.) General! (Indignantly.)

N a p o l e o n (taking the other handkerchief from his breast): You lent one of your handkerchiefs to my lieutenant when you

robbed him. (He looks at the two handkerchiefs.) They match one another. (He smells them.) The same scent. (He flings them down

on the table.) I am waiting for my despatches. I shall take them, if necessary, with as little ceremony as I took the handkerchief.

L a d y (in dignified reproof) : General: do you threaten women?

N a p o l e o n (bluntly): Yes. (Holding out his hand.) Yes: I am waiting for them.

L a d y : General: I only want to keep one little private letter. Only one. Let me have it.

N a p o l e o n (cold and stern): Is that a reasonable demand, madam?

L a d y (relaxed by his not refusing point blank): No, but that is why you must grant it. Are your own demands reasonable?

thousands of lives for the sake of your victories, your ambitions, your destiny! And what I ask is such a little thing. And I am only a

weak woman, and you a brave man. What is the secret of your power? Only that you believe in yourself. You can fight and conquer for

yourself and for nobody else. You are not afraid of your own destiny. You teach us what we all might be if we had the will and courage:

and that (suddenly sinking on knees before him) is why we all begin to worship you. (She kisses his hands.)

N a p o l e o n (embarrassed) : Tut! Tut! 5 Pray rise, madam.

L a d y : My Emperor!

N a p o l e o n (overcome, raising her): Pray! pray! No, no: this is folly. Come: be calm, be calm. (Pettingher.) There! there! my girl.

L a d y ( struggling with happy tears): Yes, I know it is an impertinence in me to tell you what you must know far better than I do.

But you are not angry with me, are you?

N a p o l e o n : Angry! No, no: not a bit. Come: you are a very clever and sensible and interesting woman. {He pats her on the

cheek.) Shall we be friends?

L a d y ( enraptured) : Your friend! You will let me be your friend! Oh! (She offers him both her hands with a radiant smile.) You

see: I shew my confidence in you.

This incautious echo of the lieutenant undoes her.

Napoleon starts; his eyes flash; he utters a yell of rage.

N a p o l e o n : What!!!

L a d y : What's the matter?

N a p o l e o n : Shew your confidence in me! So that I may shew my confidence in you in return by letting you give me the slip with

the despatches, eh? Dalila, Dalila,6 you have been trying your tricks on me; and I have been as gross a gull as my jackass of a lieu-

tenant. ( Menacingly.) Come: the despatches. Quick: I am not to be trifled with now.

L a d y (flying round the couch ) : General —

N a p o l e o n : Quick, I tell you.

L a d y (at bay, confronting him and giving way to her temper): You dare address me in that tone.

N a p o l e o n : Dare!

L a d y : Yes, dare. Who are you that you should presume to speak to me in that coarse way? Oh, the vile, vulgar Corsican ad-

venturer comes out in you very easily.

N a p o l e o n (beside himself): You she-devil! (Savagely.) Once more, and only once, will you give me those papers or shall I tear

them from you? — by force!

L a d y : Tear them from me: by force!

The Lady without speaking, stands upright, and takes a packet of papers from her bosom. She hands them politely to Napoleon.

The moment he takes them, she hurries across to the other side of the room; sits down and covers her face with her hands.

N a p o l e o n (gloating over the papers): Aha! That's right. (Before he opens them, he looks at her and says.) Excuse me. (He sees

that she is hiding her face.) Very angry with me, eh? (He unties the packet, the seal of which is already broken, and puts it on the table

to examine its contents.)

L a d y (quietly, taking down her hands and shewing that she is not crying, but only thinking ): No. You were right. But I am sorry

for you.

N a p o l e o n (pausing in the act of taking the uppermost paper from the packet): Sorry for me! Why?

L a d y : I am going to see you lose your honor.

N a p o l e o n : Hm! Nothing worse than that? (He takes up the paper.)

L a d y : And your happiness.

N a p o l e o n : Happiness! Happiness is the most tedious thing in the world to me. Should I be what I am if I cared for happiness.

Anything else?

L a d y : Nothing.

N a p o l e o n : Good.

L a d y : Except that you will cut a very foolish figure in the eyes of France.

N a p o l e o n (quickly): What? (He throws the letter down and breaks out into a torrent of scolding.) What do you mean? Eh? Are

you at your tricks again? Do you think I don't know what these papers contain? I'll tell you. First, my information as to Beau- lieu's 7

retreat. You are one of his spies: he has discovered that he had been betrayed, and has sent you to intercept the information. As if that

could save him from me, the old fool! The other papers are only my private letters from Paris, of which you know nothing.

L a d y (prompt and business-like): General: let us make § fair division. Take the information your spies have sent you about the

Austrian army; and give me the Paris correspondence. That will content me.

N a p o l e o n (his breath taken away by the coolness of her proposal): A fair di — (he gasps). It seems to me, madam, that you

have come to regard my letters as your own property, of which I am trying to rob you.

L a d y (earnestly): No: on my honor I ask for no letter of yours: not a word that has been written by you or to you. That packet con-

tains a stolen letter: a letter written by a woman to a man: a man not her husband: a letter that means disgrace, infamy — ^N a p o 1 e

o n: A love letter?

L a d y (bitter-sweetly): What else but a love letter could stir up so much hate?

N a p o l e o n : Why is it sent to me? To put the husband in my power?

L a d y : No, no: it can be of no use to you: I swear that it will cost you nothing to give it to me. It has been sent to you out of sheer

malice: solely to injure the woman who wrote it.

N a p o l e o n : Then why not send it to her husband instead of to me?

L a d y ( completely taken aback): Oh! (Sinking back into the chair.) I — I don't know. (She breaks down.)

N a p o l e o n : Aha! I thought so: a little romance to get the papers back. Per Bacco,81 can't help admiring you. I wish I could lie like

that. It would save me a great deal of trouble.

L a d y (wringing her hands): Oh how I wish I really had told you some lie! You would have believed me then. The truth is the one

thing nobody will believe.

N a p o l e o n (with coarse familiarity): Capital! Capital! Come: I am a true Corsican in my love for stories. But I could tell them