FeLIAT. Now we can talk for a minute.

MADAME GUeRET. Yes.

FeLIAT. You've quite made up your minds to come to Evreux?

GUeRET. Quite.

FeLIAT. Are you sure you won't regret Paris?

MADAME GUeRET. Oh, no.

GUeRET. For the last two years I've hated Paris.

MADAME GUeRET. Since you began to play cards.

GUeRET. For the last two years we've had the greatest difficulty in keeping up appearances. This lawyer absconding is the last blow.

FeLIAT. Aren't you afraid you will be horribly bored at La Tremblaye?

GUeRET [_rising_] What are we to do?

FeLIAT. Well, now listen to me. I told you--

_Rene comes in and takes something off a table. Feliat stops suddenly._

RENe. Good-morning, uncle. [_He hurries out_]

FeLIAT. Good-morning, Rene.

GUeRET. He knows nothing about it yet?

FeLIAT. No; and my sister-in-law asked me to tell him.

MADAME GUeRET. Well, why shouldn't you? If they _are_ engaged, we know nothing about it.

GUeRET. Oh!

MADAME GUeRET. We know nothing officially, because in these days young people don't condescend to consult their parents.

FeLIAT. Rene told his people and they gave their consent.

MADAME GUeRET. Unwillingly.

FeLIAT. Oh certainly, unwillingly. Then I'm to tell him?

MADAME GUeRET. The sooner the better.

FeLIAT. I'll tell him to-night.

GUeRET. I'm afraid it'll be an awful blow to the poor chap.

MADAME GUeRET. Oh, he's young. He'll get over it.

FeLIAT. What was I saying when he came in? Ah, yes; you know I've decided to add a bindery to my printing works at Evreux; you saw the building started when you were down there. If things go as I want them to, I shall try to do some cheap artistic binding. I want to get hold of a man who won't rob me to manage this new branch and look after it; a man who won't be too set in his ideas, because I want him to adopt mine; and, at the same time, I'd like him to be not altogether a stranger. I thought I'd found him; but I saw the man yesterday and I don't like him.

Now will _you_ take on the job? Would it suit you?

GUeRET. Would it suit me! Oh, my dear Feliat, how can I possibly thank you? To tell you the truth, I've been wondering what in the world I should do with myself now; and I was dreading the future. What you offer me is better than anything I could have dreamt of. What do you say, Marguerite?

MADAME GUeRET. I am delighted.

FeLIAT. Then that's all right.

GUeRET [_to his brother-in-law_] I think you won't regret having confidence in me.

FeLIAT. And your G.o.ddaughter?

MADAME GUeRET. Therese?

FeLIAT. Yes; how is _she_ going to face this double news of her ruin and the breaking off of her engagement?

MADAME GUeRET. I think she ought to have sense enough to understand that one is the consequence of the other. She can hardly expect Rene's parents to give their son to a girl without money.

FeLIAT. I suppose not. But what's to become of her?

GUeRET. She will live with us, of course.

MADAME GUeRET. "Of course"! I like that.

GUeRET. She has no other relations, and her father left her in my care.

MADAME GUeRET. He left her in _your_ care, and it's _I_ who have been rushed into all the trouble of a child who is nothing to me.

GUeRET. Child! She was nineteen when her father died.

FeLIAT. To look after a young girl of nineteen is a very great responsibility.

MADAME GUeRET [_laughing bitterly_] Ho! Ho! Look after! Look after Mademoiselle Therese! You think she's a person who allows herself to be looked after! And yet you've seen her more or less every holidays.

GUeRET. You've not had to look after her; she has been at the Lycee.

_Therese comes in dressed as Kalekairi from "Barberine." She is a pretty girl of twenty-three, healthy, and bright._

THeReSE. The bell, the bell, G.o.dmother! You're forgetting the bell!

Good-evening, Monsieur Feliat.

_Therese takes up the bell, which is on the table._

MADAME GUeRET. I was going to forget it! Oh, what a nuisance! All this is so new to me.