DOLPHE. And your conscience never troubled you?

HENRIETTE. No, and furthermore, I don't know what conscience is.

ADOLPHE. You don't? Well, then you'll soon learn. [Pause] How do
you believe Maurice will look when he gets here? What do you think
he will say?

HENRIETTE. Yesterday morning, you know, he and I tried to make the
same kind of guess about you while we were waiting for you.

ADOLPHE. Well?

HENRIETTE. We guessed entirely wrong.

ADOLPHE. Can you tell me why you sent for me?

HENRIETTE. Malice, arrogance, outright cruelty!

ADOLPHE. How strange it is that you can admit your faults and yet
not repent of them.

HENRIETTE. It must be because I don't feel quite responsible for
them. They are like the dirt left behind by things handled during
the day and washed off at night. But tell me one thing: do you
really think so highly of humanity as you profess to do?

ADOLPHE. Yes, we are a little better than our reputation--and a
little worse.

HENRIETTE. That is not a straightforward answer.

ADOLPHE. No, it isn't. But are you willing to answer me frankly
when I ask you: do you still love Maurice?

HENRIETTE. I cannot tell until I see him. But at this moment I
feel no longing for him, and it seems as if I could very well live
without him.

ADOLPHE. It's likely you could, but I fear you have become chained
to his fate--Sh! Here he comes.

HENRIETTE. How everything repeats itself. The situation is the
same, the very words are the same, as when we were expecting you
yesterday.

MAURICE. [Enters, pale as death, hollow-eyed, unshaven] Here I am,
my dear friends, if this be me. For that last night in a cell
changed me into a new sort of being. [Notices HENRIETTE and
ADOLPHE.]

ADOLPHE. Sit down and pull yourself together, and then we can talk
things over.

MAURICE. [To HENRIETTE] Perhaps I am in the way?

ADOLPHE. Now, don't get bitter.

MAURICE. I have grown bad in these twenty-four hours, and
suspicious also, so I guess I'll soon be left to myself. And who
wants to keep company with a murderer?

HENRIETTE. But you have been cleared of the charge.

MAURICE. [Picks up a newspaper] By the police, yes, but not by
public opinion. Here you see the murderer Maurice Gerard, once a
playwright, and his mistress, Henriette Mauclerc--

HENRIETTE. O my mother and my sisters--my mother! Jesus have
mercy!

MAURICE. And can you see that I actually look like a murderer? And
then it is suggested that my pla