Three of his
sixteen great-great-great-grandfathers married Lubins.
BURGE-LUBIN. Tut tut! I am not frivolling. _I_ did not ask the lady
here. Which of you did?
CONFUCIUS. It is her official duty to report personally to the President
once a quarter.
BURGE-LUBIN. Oh, that. Then I suppose it's my official duty to receive
her. Theyd better send her in. You don't mind, do you? She will bring us
back to real life. I don't know how you fellows feel; but I'm just going
dotty.
CONFUCIUS [_into the telephone_] The President will receive the Domestic
Minister at once.
_They watch the door in silence for the entrance of the Domestic
Minister._
BURGE-LUBIN [_suddenly, to the Archbishop_] I suppose you have been
married over and over again.
THE ARCHBISHOP. Once. You do not make vows until death when death is
three hundred years off.
_They relapse into uneasy silence. The Domestic Minister enters. She is
a handsome woman, apparently in the prime of life, with elegant, tense,
well held-up figure, and the walk of a goddess. Her expression and
deportment are grave, swift, decisive, awful, unanswerable.
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