This page needs to be proofread.
142
CYRANO DE BERGERAC
142

Roxane.

Ay, your poet's jealousy ! Hark now, if this again be not tender-sweet ? -
' My heart to yours sends but one cry :
If kisses fast could flee
By letter, then with your sweet lips
My letters read should be !
If kisses could be writ with ink,
If kisses fast could flee ! '

Cyrano

[smiling approvingly in spite of himself].

Ha ! those last lines are, hm ! ... hm ! . .

[Correcting himself - contemptuously.]

- They are paltry enough I

Roxane.

And this . . .

Cyrano

[enchanted],

Then you have his letters by heart ?

Roxane.

Every one of them !

Cyrano

By all oaths that can be sworn, 'tis flattering !

Roxane.

They are the lines of a master !

Cyrano

[modestly],

Come, nay ... a master ? . . .