it wants to. This pleasant sight makes me
enjoy politics. Long live Monsieur Marechal and his likes, _bourgeois_
of the right divine. Let us heap these precious allies with honor and
glory until our triumph ships them off to their mills again.

_Baroness_--Several of our deputies are birds of the same feather. Why
choose the least capable for orator?

_Marquis_--It's not a question of capacity.

_Baroness_--You're a warm patron of Monsieur Marechal!

_Marquis_--I regard him as a kind of family protege. His grandfather was
farmer to mine. I'm his daughter's guardian. These are bonds.

_Baroness_--You don't tell everything.

_Marquis_--All that I know.

_Baroness_--Then let me complete your information. They say that in old
times you fell in love with the first Madame Marechal.

_Marquis_--I hope you don't believe this silly story?

_Baroness_--Faith, you do so much to please Monsieur Marechal--

_Marquis_--That it seems as if I must have injured him? Good heavens!
Who is safe from malice? Nobody. Not even you, dear Baroness.

_Baroness_--I'd like to know what they can say of me.

_Marquis_--Foolish things that I certainly won't repeat.

_Baroness_--Then you believe them?

_Marquis_--God forbid! That your dead husband married his mother's
companion? It made me so angry!

_Baroness_--Too much honor for such wretched gossip.

_Marquis_--I answered strongly enough, I can tell you.

_Baroness_--I don't doubt it.

_Marquis_--But you are right in wanting to marry again.

_Baroness_--Who says I want to?

_Marquis_--Ah! you don't treat me as a friend. I deserve your confidence
all the more for understanding you as if you had given it. The aid of a
sorcerer is not to be despised, Baroness.

_Baroness_ [_sitting down by the table_]--Prove your sorcery.

_Marquis_ [_sitting down opposite_]--Willingly! Give me your hand.

_Baroness_ [_removing her glove_]--You'll give it back again.

_Marquis_--And help you dispose of it, which is more. [_Examining her
hand_.] You are beautiful, rich, and a widow.

_Baroness_--I could believe myself at Mademoiselle Lenormand's!

_Marquis_--While it is so easy, not to say tempting, for you to lead a
brilliant, frivolous life, you have chosen a role almost austere with
its irreproachable morals.

_Baroness_--If it was a role, you'll admit that it was much like a
penitence.

_Marquis_--Not for you.

_Baroness_--What do you know about it?

_Marquis_--I read it in your