Page:Dramas 1.pdf/43

MAURICE.

I do, with thanks, accept your courtesy.

[Exeunt Maurice and Guzman.

ROMIERO (looking after Maurice).

The very eye and visage, light and thoughtless;

A woman's varying blushes with the tint
Of sun-burnt hunter mix'd; the very form,
Slight as a stripling, statured as a man,
Which have—detested spell! so oft beguiled
The female fancy, prizing worthless show.
(After a pause.) Can it be so? O no! it cannot be;
I but distract myself. I'll crush within me
All thoughts which this way tend, as pois'nous asps
That sting the soul and turn its bliss to bane.

(After another pause). To think of it no more, indeed, were good,

If it were possible. And yet to know

The truth, if fair or foul, were better still;
They are both placed beneath my observation;

'Tis well I did invite him for the night. (Rings a bell violently.)

Enter Jerome.

(A pause, Romiero seeming unwilling to speak.)

JEROME.

What do you want, my Lord?

ROMIERO.

Thyself, good Jerome.

Who followed thee? I heard a creaking step.