ERMYNTRUDE. You are the Inca in disguise.
THE INCA. Good heavens! how do you know that? Who has betrayed me?
ERMYNTRUDE. How could I help divining it, Sir? Who is there in the world
like you? Your magnetism--
THE INCA. True: I had forgotten my magnetism. But you know now that
beneath the trappings of Imperial Majesty there is a Man: simple, frank,
modest, unaffected, colloquial: a sincere friend, a natural human being,
a genial comrade, one eminently calculated to make a woman happy. You,
on the other hand, are the most charming woman I have ever met. Your
conversation is wonderful. I have sat here almost in silence, listening
to your shrewd and penetrating account of my character, my motives, if I
may say so, my talents. Never has such justice been done me: never have
I experienced such perfect sympathy. Will you--I hardly know how to put
this--will you be mine?
ERMYNTRUDE. Oh, Sir, you are married.
THE INCA. I am prepared to embrace the Mahometan faith, which allows a
man four wives, if you will consent. It will please the Turks. But I had
rather you did not mention it to the Inca-ess. If you don't mind.
ERMYNTRUDE. This is really charming of you. But the time has come for
me to make a revelation. It is your Imperial Majesty's turn now to brace
yourself. To steel yourself. I am not the princess. I am--
THE INCA. The daughter of my old friend Archdeacon Daffodil Donkin,
whose sermons are read to me every evening after dinner. I never forget
a face.
ERMYNTRUDE. You knew all along!
THE INCA [bitterly, throwing himself into his chair]. And you supposed
that I, who have been condemned to the society of princesses all my
wretched life, believed for a moment that any princess that ever walked
could have your intelligence!
ERMYNTRUDE. How clever of you, Sir! But you cannot afford to marry me.
THE INCA [springing up]. Why not?
ERMYNTRUDE. You are too poor. You have to eat war bread. Kings nowadays
belong to the poorer classes. The King of England does not even allow
himself wine at dinner.
THE INCA [delighted]. Haw! Ha ha! Haw! haw! [He is convulsed with
laughter, and, finally has to relieve his feelings by waltzing half round
the room.]
ERMYNTRUDE. You may laugh, Sir; but I really could not live in that
style. I am the widow of a millionaire, ruined by your little war.
THE INCA. A millionaire! What are millionaires now, with the world
crumbling?
ERMYNTRUDE. Excuse me: mine was a hyphenated millionaire.
THE INCA. A highfalutin millionaire, you mean. [Chuckling]. Haw! ha ha!
really very nearly a pun, that. [He sits down in her chair.]
ERMYNTRUDE [revolted, sinking into his chair]. I think it quite the
worst pun I ever heard.
THE INCA. The best puns have all been made years ago: nothing remained
but to achieve the worst. However, madam [he rises majestically; and she
is about to rise also]. No: I prefer a seated audience [she falls back
into her seat at the imperious wave of his hand]. So [he clicks his
heels]. Madam, I recognize my presumption in having sought the honor
of your hand. As you say, I cannot afford it. Victorious as I am, I am
hopelessly bankrupt; and the worst of it is, I am intelligent enough
to know it. And I shall be beaten in consequence, because my most
implacable enemy, though only a few months further away from bankruptcy
than myself, has not a ray of intelligence, and will go on fighting
until civilization is destroyed, unless I, out of sheer pity for the
world, condescend to capitulate.
ERMYNTRUDE. The sooner the better, Sir. Many fine young men are dying
while you wait.
THE INCA [flinching painfully]. Why? Why do they do it?
ERMYNTRUDE. Because you make them.
THE INCA. Stuff! How can I? I am only one man; and they are millions.
Do you suppose they would really kill each other if they didn't want
to, merely for the sake of my beautiful eyes? Do not be deceived by
newspaper claptrap, madam. I was swept away by a passion not my own,
which imposed itself on me. By myself I am nothing. I dare not walk down
the principal street of my own capital in a coat two years old, though
the sweeper of that street can wear one ten years old. You talk of
death as an unpopular thing. You are wrong: for years I gave them art,
literature, science, prosperity, that they might live more abundantly;
and they hated me, ridiculed me, caricatured me. Now that I give them
death in its frightfullest forms, they are devoted to me. If you doubt
me, ask those who for years have begged our taxpayers in vain for a
few paltry thousands to spend on Life: on the bodies and minds of the
nation's children, on the beauty and healthfulness of its cities, on
the honor and comfort of its worn-out workers. They refused: and because
they refused, death is let loose on them. They grudged a few hundreds
a year for their salvation: they now pay millions a day for their own
destruction and damnation. And this they call my doing! Let them say it,
if they dare, before the judgment-seat at which they and I shall answer
at last for what we have left undone no less than for what we have done.
[Pulling himself together suddenly.] Madam, I have the honor to be your
most obedient [he clicks his heels and bows].