ALLMERS. [Approaching.] Well, what is it?

RITA. [Looking up at him with a veiled glow in her eyes.] When I
got your telegram yesterday evening--

ALLMERS. Yes? What then?

RITA. --then I dressed myself in white--

ALLMERS. Yes, I noticed you were in white when I arrived.

RITA. I had let down my hair--

ALLMERS. Your sweet masses of hair--

RITA. --so that it flowed down my neck and shoulders--

ALLMERS. I saw it, I saw it. Oh, how lovely you were, Rita!

RITA. There were rose-tinted shades over both the lamps. And we
were alone, we two--the only waking beings in the whole house. And
there was champagne on the table.

ALLMERS. I did not drink any of it.

RITA. [Looking bitterly at him.] No, that is true. [Laughs
harshly.] "There stood the champagne, but you tasted it not"--as
the poet says.

[She rises from the armchair, goes with an air of weariness over to