You
knew the truth--as you thought: aye, half the truth. We were swine
while your spell was upon us, Daughter of Circe, and you, not
knowing your island secret, deemed it our natural shape.
No wonder, Dolly, your battered waxen face is stamped with an angry
sneer. The Hero, who eventually came into his estates amid the
plaudits of the Pit, while you were left to die in the streets! you
remembered, but the house had forgotten those earlier scenes in
always wicked Paris. The good friend of the family, the breezy man
of the world, the Deus ex Machina of the play, who was so good to
everybody, whom everybody loved! aye, YOU loved him once--but that
was in the Prologue. In the Play proper, he was respectable. (How
you loathed that word, that meant to you all you vainly longed for!)
To him the Prologue was a period past and dead; a memory, giving
flavour to his life. To you, it was the First Act of the Play,
shaping all the others. His sins the house had forgotten: at
yours, they held up their hands in horror. No wonder the sneer lies
on your waxen lips.
Never mind, Dolly; it was a stupid house. Next time, perhaps, you
will play a better part; and then they will cheer, instead of
hissing you.
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