JOHN.
And people already know it?
RICHARD.
Nothing; nothing at all. The Commissary has forbidden all communication with the newspapers, and it is neither you, nor Mr. Nourvady, nor we--is it not so, gentlemen? who would reveal the least circ.u.mstance in that sad affair. The servants of the house in the Champs Elysees know what took place, but they are ignorant of the name of the lady. The scandal will be great enough at the time of the law proceedings. It is useless to initiate the public beforehand.
JOHN.
Ah! Well, you can see the affair is very simple. The Countess and I were separated, or had a separation of property; now we have a separation of the body, and we shall see each other no more; that is the whole of it.
THE LADY"S MAID (_entering_).
The Countess de Hun sends me to say to Mr. Richard, that when he has finished speaking to the Count she will be glad to see him....
JOHN (_to the Lady"s Maid_).
Say to the Countess that Mr. Richard will be with her in a few minutes.
(_The Lady"s Maid goes away._) Ah! she has audacity. When a woman has once taken up the part of infamy and dishonour it is dreadful. (_To Richard._) Tell her especially that she has nothing to fear, nothing to hope from me, of whom she will hear nothing more till we meet before the tribunal that will try our case. Good bye, my dear Mr. Richard; you are her lawyer and her friend; you ought, naturally and legally, to act in her cause. I shall think no less of you for all you will be called upon to say against me. Gentlemen, we can retire; give me a few minutes more.
(_All three go away._)
SCENE III.
RICHARD, afterwards LIONNETTE.
RICHARD _is about to take up his hat. At the moment that he is thinking of entering_ LIONNETTE"S _apartment, she appears_.
LIONNETTE.
I prefer to receive you here, my dear Mr. Richard, as we shall be left alone and uninterrupted. My room, and my private reception-room, are in disorder; they are packing my trunks--the servants are there, and we could not talk privately. The reason I called you just now was, that the Count might be aware that I was here, and that I was in a hurry to see you. Have you been kind enough to do what I asked you?
RICHARD.
Yes.
LIONNETTE.
Then I have nothing more to tell you?
RICHARD.
No. All that is then quite true?
LIONNETTE.
Nothing on earth can be truer.
RICHARD.
Notwithstanding yesterday?
LIONNETTE.
Events have progressed, and I preferred to have done with it at once. I was right. I am calmer now than I have ever been in my life. I know at last what I want, and where I am going. It is a great deal, whatever one may make of it. I have struggled hard against it, but it seems that I am doomed to end in being a courtesan. Truly, I do not feel any inclination that way. Frivolous, extravagant, but never depraved. However, they willed it; it was inevitable; it was ordained; it was hereditary. My dear Mr. Richard, I have to ask you for some information, because I am still a little inexperienced in my new profession; but from the moment one begins to do those things, they must be done openly, is it not so?
Ah! well, here are the t.i.tle-deeds of some property I have acquired.
RICHARD.
Dearly?
LIONNETTE.
Yes, very dearly.
RICHARD.
And the price is paid?
LIONNETTE.
It is paid.
RICHARD.
Is it true?
LIONNETTE.
Paid or not paid, here are the t.i.tle-deeds. (_Putting them on the table, and beginning to totter._) Then I possess, too, over and above all my paid debts--for they are paid--I am possessor, also, of a million in gold, quite new: it is superb to look at.
RICHARD.
Sit down, you look as if you were going to fall. You are quite pale; the blood has rushed to your heart.
LIONNETTE (_with a great effort_).
Do not be afraid, I am quite strong. I cannot eternally keep a million in gold ... however beautiful it may be ... it is an inc.u.mbrance, and then it might be stolen from me ... and money ... is everything in this world! Without reckoning that in cash this million will yield nothing ... and I want it to produce something.... I should like, then, to place it out in the best way possible. You must place it for me in safety, where it cannot be touched, like the little income that remains to the Count; so that I, too, may not want bread in my old age. I am such a spendthrift. I count entirely on you for that.
RICHARD.
And where is this million?
LIONNETTE.
It is over there, in my house, the house that I ... bought--in a coffer that I have even forgotten to shut; that is to say ... there are pieces of gold lying in all directions ... on the table ... on the carpet. The Commissary of Police opened his eyes!... If the footmen have taken some, say nothing about it.... I am rich ... for there is also in a cabinet a will of Mr. Nourvady, who, in the event of his death, leaves me all his fortune: forty millions. That is worth something! But death is like everything else in this world, it must not too surely be reckoned on.