Page:Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, and Playlets of the War.djvu/347

 looked at the officer's passport when he was in his bath. It was your passport.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stuff! Why did he not have me arrested?

STRAMMFEST. When the waiter returned to the hotel with the police the officer had vanished; and you were there with your own passport. They knouted him.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh! Strammfest, send these men away. I must speak to you alone.

STRAMMFEST [rising in horror]. No: this is the last straw: I cannot consent. It is impossible, utterly, eternally impossible, that a daughter of the Imperial House should speak to any one alone, were it even her own husband.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. You forget that there is an exception. She may speak to a child alone. [She rises.] Strammfest, you have been dandled on my grandmother's knee. By that gracious action the dowager Panjandrina made you a child forever. So did Nature, by the way. I order you to speak to me alone. Do you hear? I order you. For seven hundred years no member of your family has ever disobeyed an order from a member of mine. Will you disobey me?

STRAMMFEST. There is an alternative to obedience. The dead cannot disobey. [He takes out his pistol and places the muzzle against his temple.]

SCHNEIDEKIND [snatching the pistol from him]. For God's sake, General&mdash;

STRAMMFEST [attacking him furiously to recover the weapon]. Dog of a subaltern, restore that pistol and my honor.

SCHNEIDEKIND [reaching out with the pistol to the Grand Duchess]. Take it: quick: he is as strong as a bull.