t.]

(Curtain.)

ACT II

FIRST SCENE

(The Auberge des Adrets: a cafe in sixteenth century style, with a
suggestion of stage effect. Tables and easy-chairs are scattered
in corners and nooks. The walls are decorated with armour and
weapons. Along the ledge of the wainscoting stand glasses and
jugs.)

(MAURICE and HENRIETTE are in evening dress and sit facing each
other at a table on which stands a bottle of champagne and three
filled glasses. The third glass is placed at that side of the
table which is nearest the background, and there an easy-chair is
kept ready for the still missing "third man.")

MAURICE. [Puts his watch in front of himself on the table] If he
doesn't get here within the next five minutes, he isn't coming at
all. And suppose in the meantime we drink with his ghost. [Touches
the third glass with the rim of his own.]

HENRIETTE. [Doing the same] Here's to you, Adolphe!

MAURICE. He won't come.

HENRIETTE. He will come.

MAURICE. He won't.

HENRIETTE. He will.

MAURICE. What an evening! What a wonderful day! I can hardly grasp
that a new life has begun. Think only: the manager believes that I
may count on no less than one hundred thousand francs. I'll spend
twenty thousand on a villa outside the city. That leaves me eighty
thousand. I won't be able to take it all in until to-morrow, for I
am tired, tired, tired. [Sinks back into the chair] Have you ever
felt really happy?

HENRIETTE. Never. How does it feel?

MAURICE. I don't quite know how to put it. I cannot express it,
but I seem chiefly to be thinking of the chagrin of my enemies. It
isn't nice, but that's the way it is.

HENRIETTE. Is it happiness to be thinking of one's enemies?

MAURICE. Why, the victor has to count his killed and wounded
enemies in order to gauge the extent of his victory.

HENRIETTE. Are you as bloodthirsty as all that?

MAURICE. Perhaps not. But when you have felt the pressure of other
people's heels on your chest for years, it must be pleasant to
shake off the enemy and draw a full breath at last.

HENRIETTE. Don't you find it strange that yon are sitting here,
alone with me, an insignificant girl practically unknown to you--
and on an evening like this, when you ought to have a craving to
show yourself like a triumphant hero to all the people, on the
boulevards, in the big restaurants?

MAURICE. Of course, it's rather funny, but it feels good to be
here, and your company is all I care for.