s a pleasant young fellow, our intimate friend for
some four years; what is more natural than your attachment for the
youth, whose birth and talents are both in his favor?

Pauline
He is my father's clerk.

Gertrude
Thank God, you are not in love with him; I was a little anxious for
the moment, for, my dear child, he is a married man.

Pauline
What! He is married? Why then does he make a secret of it? (Aside)
Married? That would be outrageous. I will ask him this evening. I will
give him the signal on which we agreed to meet.

Gertrude (aside)
Not a line of her face changed! Godard is wrong, or this child is more
self-possessed than I am. (Aloud) What is the matter with you, my pet?

Pauline
Oh! nothing.

Gertrude (touching Pauline's neck)
Why, you are quite hot! Do you feel so? (Aside) She loves him, that is
plain. But the question is, does he love her? I suffer the torments of
the damned!

Pauline
I have been working too closely at this frame! And what, pray, is the
matter with you?

Gertrude
Nothing. But you asked me why Ferdinand kept his marriage secret.

Pauline
Ah! yes!

Gertrude (rising, aside)
If she is in love, she has a will of iron. But where can they have
met? I never leave her in the daytime, and Champagne sees him all the
time at the factory. No! it is absurd. If she does love him, it is
without his knowledge, and she is like all other young girls, who
begin to love a man in secret. But if they have come to an
understanding, I have given her such a start that she will be sure to
communicate with him about it, if only through her eyes. I will keep
them both well in sight.

Godard
We have had wonderful luck, M. Ferdinand!

(Ferdinand leaves off playing and goes towards Gertrude.)

Pauline (aside)
I did not know that it was possible to suffer so much and yet live on.

Ferdinand (to Gertrude)
Madame, won't you take my place in the game?

Gertrude
Pauline, will you go instead? (Aside) I can't tell him that he loves
Pauline, that would suggest what may be a new idea to him. What shall
I do? (to Ferdinand) She has confessed all.

Ferdinand
Confessed what?

Gertrude
Why, all!

Ferdinand
I don't understand. Do you refer to Mlle. de Grandchamp?

Gertrude
Yes.

Ferdinand
And what has she been doing?

Gertrude
You have not been false to me? You do not want to kill me?

Ferdinand
Kill you? She? I?

Gertrude
Am I the victim of one of Godard's jokes?

Ferdinand
Gertrud