a repetitive eighth note pattern on the words "I want to buy that hat of peacock feathers!" The line is sung over pulsating E flat and B flat major triads. The second section shifts to a bi-tonal suggestion of a C flat major melody over an A flat major accompaniment, before returning to the original driving eighth note theme. Bill Sally's husband Bill, the lawyer, worries that his wife's "dummy" outburst is a double-entendre and that she may have discovered his affair with another woman named Cymbaline. He describes his mistress as having "geranium scented breath," and blond hair. He continues his soliloquy with contemplating her whereabouts, jealously wondering who she may be with tonight ("Is it Christopher, Oliver, Mortimer, Manfred, Chuck, Tommy, or Dominic?"), and regretting that he is married to Sally rather than her. Bill's arietta ends with Sally saying, "The Queen, you have trumped the Queen!" Bill's arietta is primarily constructed of scalar triplet figures, creating a romantic waltz that reflects his preoccupation with his mistress, Cymbaline. Toward the closing of his monologue, Bill's forbidden physical desires are expressed by augmented and diminished intervals in his accompaniment on the words, "strangle in the dark!" Bill is a caricature of one of Barber's neighbors, a business man who hid behind religious pretense. Geraldine Geraldine wonders why Bill is so distracted, deciding that it is neither by his wife, whom she refers to as his "long discarded queen," nor herself, with whom he used to play footsie under the card table. Her inner-monologue is lamentful, asking who loves her and whom she loves. She lists the people she knows do not love her: "the foolish knave of hearts" in reference to Bill, her father, "my stock market husband" in reference to David, and their "football son." She then regrets not having a relationship with her dying mother when she had had the chance, begging her not to die now that she is "learning to love" her. Geraldine's lament is set with a G major melody with hints of modal mixture, over a B flat major accompaniment. The only stable moment in the arietta occurs on the subject of Geraldine's ill mother, where the music solidifies on B flat major and the meter changes from 3/2 to 4/2, before returning to the G major melody. Geraldine is a direct reference to Barber's sister, Sarah, who had an unstable relationship with