MARTHE. How is business now? LAMBLIN. Not very good. MARTHE. Did M. Pacot reimburse you? MADAME BAIL. Yes, did he? LAMBLIN. It's been pretty hard these past three days, but I am reimbursed, and that's all I ask. Now I'm going to sign my papers. It won't take me more than a quarter of an hour. I'll find you here when I come back, shan't I? [_To Marthe._] And the little one will leave me my cognac, eh? See you soon. MADAME BAIL. Yes, see you soon. LAMBLIN [_to Marthe_]. You'll let me have my cognac? MARTHE. No! It's ridiculous! It'll make you ill. [_Lamblin goes out._] MADAME BAIL. There's a good boy! MARTHE. You always stand up for him. The world is full of "good boys" of his sort. "Good boys"! They're all selfish! MADAME BAIL. Don't get so excited! MARTHE. I'm not in the least excited. I'm as calm now as I was excited a year ago when I learned of Alfred's affair. MADAME BAIL. I understand. MARTHE. No, you don't understand. MADAME BAIL. You didn't behave at all reasonably, as you ought to have done long since. You still have absurd romantic ideas. You're not at all reasonable. MARTHE [_very much put out_]. Well, if I still have those absurd ideas, if I rebel at times, if, as you say, I'm unreasonable, whom does it harm but me alone? What do you expect? The bare idea of sharing him is repulsive to me. Think of it a moment--how perfectly abominable it all is! Why, we are practically accomplices! I thought we were going to discuss it with him just now! It will happen, I know! MADAME BAIL. What do you intend to do about it? You keep on saying the same thing. I'm an experienced woman. Why don't you take my word, and be a philosopher, the way all women are, the way I've had to be more than once? If you think for one moment that your own father--! Well, we won't say anything about him. MARTHE. Philosopher, philosopher! A nice way to put it! In what way is that Mathilde Cogé, who is his mistress, better than I? I'd like to know that! MADAME BAIL. In any event, he might have done much worse. She is a widow, a woman of the world, and she isn't ruining him. I know her slightly; I've seen her at Madame Parent's. She just seems a little mad, and not in the least spiteful! MARTHE [_raging_]. Ah! MADAME BAIL. But what are you going to do about it? MARTHE. It would be best to separate. MADAME BAIL. Why didn't you think of that sooner? You know very well you'd be sorry the moment you'd done it. MARTHE. Don't you think that would be best for us all? What am I doing here? What hopes have I for the future? Merely to complete the happiness of Monsieur, who deigns to see in me an agreeable nurse, who occasionally likes to rest by my side after his escapades elsewhere! Thank you so much! I might just as well go! MADAME BAIL. That would be madness. You wouldn't be so foolish as to do it. MARTHE. Yes--I know--society would blame me!