Enter a Servant, who whispers GUISE.

A lady, say’st thou, young and beautiful,
Brought in a chair? 
Conduct her in.—­ [Exit Servant.

Card. You would be left alone?

Gui. I would; retire. [Exeunt MAY.  CARD. _&c._

  Re-enter Servant with MARMOUTIERE, and exit.

Starting back.] Is’t possible?  I dare not trust my eyes!  You are not Marmoutiere?

Mar. What am I then?

Gui. Why, any thing but she:  What should the mistress of a king do here?

Mar. Find him, who would be master of a king.

Gui. I sent not for you, madam.

Mar. I think, my lord, the king sent not for you.

Gui. Do you not fear, your visit will be known?

Mar. Fear is for guilty men, rebels, and traitors:  Where’er I go, my virtue is my guard.

Gui. What devil has sent thee here to plague my soul? 
O that I could detest thee now as much
As ever I have loved, nay, even as much
As yet, in spite of all thy crimes, I love! 
But ’tis a love so mixt with dark despair,
The smoke and soot smother the rising flame,
And make my soul a furnace.  Woman, woman,
What can I call thee more? if devil, ’twere less. 
Sure, thine’s a race was never got by Adam,
But Eve played false, engendering with the serpent,
Her own part worse than his.

Mar. Then they got traitors.

Gui. Yes, angel-traitors, fit to shine in palaces,
Forked into ills, and split into deceits;
Two in their very frame.  ’Twas well, ’twas well,
I saw thee not at court, thou basilisk;
For if I had, those eyes, without his guards,
Had done the tyrant’s work.

Mar. Why then it seems
I was not false in all:  I told you, Guise,
If you left Paris, I would go to court: 
You see I kept my promise.

Gui. Still thy sex:  Once true in all thy life, and that for mischief.

Mar. Have I said I loved you?

Gui. Stab on, stab:  ’Tis plain you love the king.

Mar. Nor him, nor you,
In that unlawful way you seem to mean. 
My eyes had once so far betrayed my heart,
As to distinguish you from common men;
Whate’er you said, or did, was charming all.

Gui. But yet, it seems, you found a king more charming.

Mar. I do not say more charming, but more noble,
More truly royal, more a king in soul,
Than you are now in wishes.

Gui. May be so:  But love has oiled your tongue to run so glib,—­ Curse on your eloquence!

Mar. Curse not that eloquence that saved your life: 
For, when your wild ambition, which defied
A royal mandate, hurried you to town;
When over-weening pride of popular power
Had thrust you headlong in the Louvre toils,
Then had you died:  For know, my haughty lord,
Had I not been, offended majesty
Had doomed you to the death you well deserved.