The General
You naughty child!
Pauline
Keep my secret, or I will bring you a son-in-law that will drive you
wild.
(Pauline enters her own apartment.)
SCENE EIGHTH
The General (alone)
There must certainly be some key to this enigma! It must be
discovered! Yes, and Gertrude shall discover it!
(Scene curtain.)
SCENE NINTH
(Pauline's chamber; a small plain room with a bed in the centre and a
round table at the left; the entrance is at the right, but there is a
secret entrance on the left.)
Pauline
At last I am alone! At last I can be natural! Married? My Ferdinand
married? If this is so, he is the falsest, foulest, vilest of men! And
I could kill him! Kill him? But I myself could not survive one hour
the knowledge that he was actually married. My stepmother I detest!
And if she becomes my enemy, there will be war between us, and war in
earnest. It would be terrible, for I should tell my father all I know.
(She looks at her watch.) Half-past eleven, and he cannot come before
midnight, when the whole household is asleep. Poor Ferdinand! He has
to risk his life for a few minutes' chat with her he loves! That is
what I call true love! Such perils men will not undergo for every
woman! But what would I not undergo for him! If my father surprised
us, I would be the one to take the first blow. Oh! To suspect the man
you love is to suffer greater torment than to lose him! If he dies,
you can follow him in death; but doubt--is the cruelest of
separations!--Ah! I hear him.
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