ream has lasted twelve
years! But you know how women reason.

Ramel
They have a special jurisprudence of their own.

Ferdinand
Gertrude is a woman of the fiercest jealousy. She wishes for fidelity
in her lover to recompense her for her infidelity to her husband, and
as she has suffered martyrdom, she says, she wishes--

Ramel
To have you in the same house with her, that she may keep watch over
you herself.

Ferdinand
She has been successful in getting me here. For the last three years I
have been living in a small house near the factory. I should have left
the first week after my arrival, but that two days' acquaintance with
Pauline convinced me that I could not live without her.

Ramel
Your love for Pauline, it seems to me as a magistrate, makes your
position here somewhat less distasteful.

Ferdinand
My position? I assure you, it is intolerable, among the three
characters with whom I am cast. Pauline is daring, like all young
persons who are innocent, to whom love is a wholly ideal thing, and
who see no evil in anything, so long as it concerns a man whom they
intend to marry. The penetration of Gertrude is very acute, but we
manage to elude it through Pauline's terror lest my name should be
divulged; the sense of this danger gives her strength to dissemble!
But now Pauline has just refused Godard, and I do not know what may be
the consequences.

Ramel
I know Godard; under a somewhat dull exterior he conceals great
sagacity, and he is the most inquisitive man in the department. Is he
here now?

Ferdinand
He dines here to-day.

Ramel
Do not trust him.

Ferdinand
If two women, between whom there is no love lost, make the discovery
that they are rivals, one of them, I can't say which, is capable of
killing the other, for one is strong in innocence and lawful love; the
other, furious to see the fruit of so much dissimulation, so many
sacrifices, even crimes lost to her forever.

(Enter Napoleon.)

Ramel
You alarm me--me, the prosecuting attorney! Upon my word and honor,
women often cost more than they are worth.

Napoleon
Dear friend! Papa and mamma are impatient about you; they send word
that you must leave your business, and Vernon says that your stomach
requires it.

Ferdinand
You little rogue! You are come eavesdropping!

Napoleon
Mamma whispered in my ear: "Go and see what your friend is doing."

Ferdinand
Run away, you little scamp! Be off! I am coming. (To Ramel) You see
she makes