Embrace me now!

Sir. . .

You are brave.

Oh! but. . .

Nay, I insist.

Pray tell me. . .

Come, embrace! I am her brother.

Whose brother?

Hers i' faith! Roxane's!

(rushing up to him) O heavens! Her brother. . .?

Cousin--brother!. . .the same thing!

And she has told you. . .?

All!

She loves me? say!

Maybe!

(taking his hands) How glad I am to meet you, Sir!

That may be called a sudden sentiment!

I ask your pardon. . .

(looking at him, with his hand on his shoulder) True, he's fair, the villain!

Ah, Sir! If you but knew my admiration!. . .

But all those noses?. . .

Oh! I take them back!

Roxane expects a letter.

Woe the day!

How?

I am lost if I but ope my lips!

Why so?

I am a fool--could die for shame!

None is a fool who knows himself a fool. And you did not attack me like a fool.

Bah! One finds battle-cry to lead th' assault! I have a certain military wit, But, before women, can but hold my tongue. Their eyes! True, when I pass, their eyes are kind. . .

And, when you stay, their hearts, methinks, are kinder?

No! for I am one of those men--tongue-tied, I know it--who can never tell their love.

And I, meseems, had Nature been more kind, More careful, when she fashioned me,--had been One of those men who well could speak their love!

Oh, to express one's thoughts with facile grace!. . .

. . .To be a musketeer, with handsome face!

Roxane is precieuse. I'm sure to prove A disappointment to her!

(looking at him) Had I but Such an interpreter to speak my soul!

(with despair) Eloquence! Where to find it?

(abruptly) That I lend, If you lend me your handsome victor-charms; Blended, we make a hero of romance!

How so?

Think you you can repeat what things I daily teach your tongue?

What do you mean?

Roxane shall never have a disillusion! Say, wilt thou that we woo her, double-handed? Wilt thou that we two woo her, both together? Feel'st thou, passing from my leather doublet, Through thy laced doublet, all my soul inspiring?

But, Cyrano!. . .

Will you, I say?

I fear!

Since, by yourself, you fear to chill her heart, Will you--to kindle all her heart to flame-- Wed into one my phrases and your lips?

Your eyes flash!

Will you?

Will it please you so? --Give you such pleasure?

(madly) It!. . . (Then calmly, business-like): It would amuse me! It is an enterprise to tempt a poet. Will you complete me, and let me complete you? You march victorious,--I go in your shadow; Let me be wit for you, be you my beauty!

The letter, that she waits for even now! I never can. . .

(taking out the letter he had written) See! Here it is--your letter!

What?

Take it! Look, it wants but the address.

But I. . .

Fear nothing. Send it. It will suit.

But have you. . .?

Oh! We have our pockets full, We poets, of love-letters, writ to Chloes, Daphnes--creations of our noddle-heads. Our lady-loves,--phantasms of our brains, --Dream-fancies blown into soap-bubbles! Come! Take it, and change feigned love-words into true; I breathed my sighs and moans haphazard-wise; Call all these wandering love-birds home to nest. You'll see that I was in these lettered lines, --Eloquent all the more, the less sincere! --Take it, and make an end!

Were it not well To change some words? Written haphazard-wise, Will it fit Roxane?

'Twill fit like a glove!

But. . .

Ah, credulity of love! Roxane Will think each word inspired by herself!

My friend!