Your study, indeed--your studio--you mean, you rascal, where your clients are--models-- LÉON [_with mock modesty_] Oh, Auntie. My clients, at least, don't unrobe--alas! [_Exit_ Léon R., _giving a mock benediction to the lovers_.] Children, receive my benediction! [_Exit_ Madame de Ronchard C.] SCENE V. (Jean _and_ Gilberte _seated on the sofa at right_.) JEAN At last, you are my wife, Mademoiselle. GILBERTE Mademoiselle? JEAN Forgive me. I hardly know how to address you. GILBERTE Call me Gilberte. There is nothing shocking about that, is there? JEAN Gilberte, at last, at last, at last, you are my wife! GILBERTE And truly, not without a good deal of trouble. JEAN And what a dainty, energetic little creature you are! How you fought with your father, and with your aunt, for it is only through you, and thanks to you, that we are married, for which I thank you with all my heart--the heart which belongs to you. GILBERTE But it is only because I trusted you, and that is all. JEAN And have you only trust for me? GILBERTE Stupid boy! You know that you pleased me. If you had only pleased me, my confidence in you would have been useless. One must love first. Without that, Monsieur, nothing can come. JEAN Call me Jean, just as I have called you Gilberte. GILBERTE [_hesitates_] But that is not altogether the same thing. It seems to me--that--that--I cannot do it. [_Rises and crosses_ L.] JEAN [_rises_] But I love you. I am no trifler, believe me; I love you. I am the man who loves you because he has found in you qualities that are inestimable. You are one of those perfect creatures who have as much brains as sentiment; and the sentimentality that permeates you is not the sickly sentimentality of ordinary women. It is that gloriously beautiful faculty of tenderness which characterizes great souls, and which one never meets elsewhere in the world. And then, you are so beautiful, so graceful, with a grace that is all your own, and I, who am a painter, you know how I adore the beautiful. Then, above everything, you drew me to you, but not only that, you wiped out the traces of the world from my mind and eyes. GILBERTE I like to hear you say that. But, don't talk any more just now in that way, because it embarrasses me. However, I know, for I try to foresee everything, that to enjoy these things I must listen to them to-day, for your words breathe the passion of a lover. Perhaps in the future your words will be as sweet, for they could not help being so when a man speaks as you spoke and loves as you appear to love, but at the same time, they will be different. JEAN Oh! GILBERTE [_sits on stool near the table_] Tell me it over again. JEAN What drew me to you was the mysterious harmony between your natural form and the soul within it. Do you recollect my first visit to this house? GILBERTE Oh, yes, very well. My brother brought you to dinner, and I believe that you did not wish to come. JEAN [_laughs_]