STRAMMFEST. You must be mad to think of royalty in such a way. I
never yawned at court. The dogs yawned; but that was because they
were dogs: they had no imagination, no ideals, no sense of honor
and dignity to sustain them.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. My poor Strammfest: you were not often enough
at court to tire of it. You were mostly soldiering; and when you
came home to have a new order pinned on your breast, your
happiness came through looking at my father and mother and at me,
and adoring us. Was that not so?

STRAMMFEST. Do YOU reproach me with it? I am not ashamed of it.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, it was all very well for you, Strammfest.
But think of me, of me! standing there for you to gape at, and
knowing that I was no goddess, but only a girl like any other
girl! It was cruelty to animals: you could have stuck up a wax
doll or a golden calf to worship; it would not have been bored.

STRAMMFEST. Stop; or I shall renounce my allegiance to you. I
have had women flogged for such seditious chatter as this.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Do not provoke me to send a bullet through
your head for reminding me of it.

STRAMMFEST. You always had low tastes. You are no true daughter
of the Panjandrums: you are a changeling, thrust into the
Panjandrina's bed by some profligate nurse. I have heard stories
of your childhood: of how--