e marquis) Try to be calm and sensible.

The Duchesse de Montsorel (aside)
In trying to help, I have hurt him, I fear.

Joseph
M. Raoul de Frescas.

Raoul (entering)
My eagerness to obey your commands will prove to you, Madame la
Duchesse, how proud I am of your notice, and how anxious to deserve
it.

The Duchesse de Montsorel
I thank you, sir, for your promptitude. (Aside) But it may prove fatal
to you.

Raoul (bowing to the Duchesse de Christoval and her daughter, aside)
How is this? Inez here?

(Raoul exchanges bows with the duke; but the marquis takes up a
newspaper from the table, and pretends not to see Raoul.)

The Duke
I must confess, Monsieur de Frescas, I did not expect to meet you in
the apartment of Madame de Montsorel; but I am pleased at the interest
she takes in you, for it has procured me the pleasure of meeting a
young man whose entrance into Parisian society has been attended with
such success and brilliancy. You are one of the rivals whom one is
proud to conquer, but to whom one submits without displeasure.

Raoul
This exaggerated eulogy, with which I cannot agree, would be ironical
unless it had been pronounced by you; but I am compelled to
acknowledge the courtesy with which you desire to set me at my ease,
(looking at the marquis, who turns his back on him), in a house where
I might well think myself unwelcome.

The Duke
On the contrary, you have come just at the right moment, we were just
speaking of your family and of the aged Commander de Frescas whom
madame and myself were once well acquainted with.

Raoul
I am highly honored by the interest you take in me; but such an honor
is generally enjoyed at the cost of some slight gossip.

The Duke
People can only gossip about those whom they know well.

The Duchesse de Christoval
And we would like to have the right of gossiping about you.

Raoul
It is my interest to keep myself in your good graces.

The Duchesse de Montsorel
I know one way of doing so.

Raoul
What is that?

The Duchesse de Montsorel
Remain the same mysterious personage you are at present.

The Marquis (rejoining them, newspaper in hand)
Here is a strange thing, ladies; one of those foreigners who claim to
be noblemen has been caught cheating at play at the field marshal's
house.

Inez
Is that the great piece of news in which you have been absorbed?

Raoul
In these times, everyone seems to be a foreigner.

The Marquis
It is not altogether the piec