hear from your lips!
LADY MILFORD. And wherefore, Sophy? Does not woman show, by her childish mode of swaying the sceptre of power, that she is only fit to go in leading-strings! Have not my fickle humors—my eager pursuit of wild dissipation—betrayed to you that I sought in these to stifle the still wilder throbbings of my heart?
SOPHY (starting back with surprise). This from you, my lady?
LADY MILFORD (continuing with increasing energy). Appease these throbbings. Give me the man in whom my thoughts are centered—the man I adore, without whom life were worse than death. Let me but hear from his lips that the tears of love with which my eyes are bedewed outvie the gems that sparkle in my hair, and I will throw at the feet of the prince his heart and his dukedom, and flee to the uttermost parts of the earth with the man of my love!
SOPHY (looking at her in alarm). Heavens! my lady! control your emotion——
LADY MILFORD (in surprise). You change color! To what have I given utterance? Yet, since I have said thus much, let me say still more—let my confidence be a pledge of your fidelity,—I will tell you all.
SOPHY (looking anxiously around). I fear my lady—I dread it—I have heard enough!
LADY MILFORD. This alliance with the major—you, like the rest of the world, believe to be the result of a court intrigue—Sophy, blush not—be not ashamed of me—it is the work of—my love!
SOPHY. Heavens! As I suspected!
LADY MILFORD. Yes, Sophy, they are all deceived. The weak prince—the diplomatic baron—the silly marshal—each and all of these are firmly convinced that this marriage is a most infallible means of preserving me to the prince, and of uniting us still more firmly! But this will prove the very means of separating us forever, and bursting asunder these execrable bonds. The cheater cheated—outwitted by a weak woman. Ye yourselves are leading me to the man of my heart—this was all I sought. Let him but once be mine—be but mine—then, oh, then, a long farewell to all this despicable pomp!
SCENE
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