SCENE 3

HEROD. TITUS.

HEROD.

Well, Titus, well? Admits Soemus----?

TITUS.

What you know. Not more.

HEROD.

Naught of----?

TITUS.

Oh no! He leapt to feet as raving If I but cast the lightest hint thereat.

HEROD.

I could expect it.

TITUS.

“Never could,” he answered, “A wife like yours have lived, and never was A man so little worth the precious jewel That God vouchsafed to him----”

HEROD.

As I myself! Yes, yes! “He did not know the worth of pearls Wherefore I took them from him,” said the thief. I know not if that helped.

TITUS.

“Her heart was nobler Than gold.”

HEROD.

And so he knows it! Swimming-brained He lauds the wine. Does not that furnish proof That he has drunk.[17] And what veneer used he To coat it? Why betrayed he my commission To her?

TITUS.

From loathing, as he said.

HEROD.

From loathing? And he ne’er gave the loathing words to me?

TITUS.

Would not the event have been his bane? Could you Have granted life unto the stockish servant If once he had received from you command And pushed it from him?

HEROD.

Why, in such a case, Was’t not enough to leave it unfruitioned?

TITUS.

Yes; but if he went further he has done it Perchance because he deemed you as one lost And now was fain to have the Queen’s good grace A bargain at your cost for his own profit, Since it was in her hands his future lay.

HEROD.

No, Titus, no! Soemus was the man To risk the daring bid in his own person That makes another’s grace a needless prop. For that sole cause I gave it him. I thought:-- “’Tis done for self if ’tis not done for you.” Yes, had he been a lesser than he is And had he not in Rome friends in such plenty I could have thought it true. But now--no, no, There was one only ground.

TITUS.

And yet he’ll not Confess that one.

HEROD.

He were not what he is If he should do it, for he knows full well What follows that, and hopes now through his lying To waken in my breast one last misdoubting Such as will guard, if not perchance his head, Then hers before the coming bulk of death. He errs, though. That misdoubting lacks its sting. Had I no cause to punish what she did I’d punish that which she became and is. Ha, had she ever been what she has seemed She never could have donned this shifting slough And I’ll take vengeance on the duplex Thing. Yes, Titus, yes, I swear it by the key Of Paradise that she holds in her hands, By all beatitude that she erewhile Has granted me, that she can grant me still, Yea, by this instant’s shudder which monitions That I in her will blot myself to nothing, I make an end howe’er the matter stand.

TITUS.

It is too late to make the cry of warning “Give not the order!” and I know myself No means of leading this to issue clear And therefore cannot dare to say “Hold! Hold!”

[_Enter_ JOAB.