Oh! How provoking you are. Can't you understand that I am in the power of this man, that I belong to him even more than his valet or his dog, because he has those abominable legal rights over me? The Code, your barbarous Code, puts me entirely in his power without any possible defense on my part; save actually killing me, he can do everything. Can't you understand that? Can't you realize the horror of my situation? Imagine, save actual murder, he can do anything to me, and he has the strength--not only physical but legal--to obtain anything from me. And I, I have not a single avenue of escape from a man whom I despise and hate. And that is the law made by you men! He took me, married me, deserted me. On my part, I have an absolutely moral right to leave him. And yet, despite this righteous hatred, this overpowering disgust, this loathing which creeps through me in the presence of the man who has scorned me, deceived me, and who has fluttered, right under my eyes, from girl to girl--this man, I say, has the right to demand from me a shameful and infamous concession. I have no right to hide myself; I have no right even to a key to my own door. Everything belongs to him--the key, the door, and even the woman who hates him. It is monstrous! Can you imagine such a horrible situation? That a woman should not be mistress of herself, should not even have the sacred right of preserving her person from a loathsome stain? And all this is the consequence of the infamous law which you men have made! JACQUES DE RANDOL [_appealingly_] My darling! I fully understand what you must be suffering; but how can I help it? No magistrate can protect you; no statute can preserve you. MME. DE SALLUS I know it. But when you have neither mother nor father to protect you, when the law is against you, and when you shrink from complicity in those degrading transactions to which many women yield themselves, there is always one means of escape. JACQUES DE RANDOL And that? MME. DE SALLUS Flight. JACQUES DE RANDOL You mean to say-- MME. DE SALLUS Flight. JACQUES DE RANDOL Alone? MME. DE SALLUS No--with you. JACQUES DE RANDOL With me! Are you dreaming? MME. DE SALLUS No; so much the better. The scandal of it will prevent him from taking me back. I have gained courage now. Since he forces me to dishonor, I shall see that that dishonor is complete and overwhelming--even though it be the worse for him and for me. JACQUES DE RANDOL Oh! Beware, beware, my darling! You are in one of those moments of exaltation and nervous excitement in which a woman sometimes commits a folly that is irreparable. MME. DE SALLUS Well, I would rather commit such a folly and ruin myself--if that be ruin--than expose myself to the infamous struggle with which each day I am threatened. JACQUES DE RANDOL Madeline, hear me. You are in a terrible situation, but for God's sake do not throw yourself into one that is irretrievable. Be calm, I implore you. MME. DE SALLUS