MADELEINE. You can imagine my explanation following the discovery. My dear Marcel, there's going to be a divorce. MARCEL. A--! A divorce? MADELEINE. Don't feel too sorry for me. After all, I shall be free and almost happy. MARCEL. What resignation! MADELEINE. Only-- MARCEL. Only what? MADELEINE. He is going to send you his seconds. MARCEL [_gayly_]. A duel? To-day? You're not serious? MADELEINE. I think he wants to kill you. MARCEL. But that affair was three years ago! Why, to begin with, he hasn't the right! MADELEINE. Because it was so long ago? MARCEL. Three years is three years. MADELEINE. You're right: _now_ you are not in love with his wife: you love your own. Time has changed everything. Now your own happiness is all-sufficient. I can easily understand your indignation against my husband. MARCEL. Oh, I-- MADELEINE. My husband is slow, but he's sure, isn't he? MARCEL. You're cruel, Madeleine. MADELEINE. If it's ancient history for you, it's only too recent for him! MARCEL. Let's not speak about him! MADELEINE. But he ought to be a very interesting topic of conversation just now! MARCEL. I hadn't foreseen his feeling so keenly. MADELEINE. You must tell him how sorry you are when you see him. MARCEL. At the duel? MADELEINE. Elsewhere! MARCEL. Where? Here, in my house? MADELEINE. My dear, he may want to tell you how he feels. [_A pause._] MARCEL [_aside, troubled_]. The devil! And Françoise? [_Another pause._] Oh, a duel! Well, I ought to risk my life for you; you have done the same thing for me many times. MADELEINE. Oh, I was not so careful as you were then. MARCEL. You are not telling me everything, Madeleine. What put it into your husband's head to look through your papers? MADELEINE. Ah! MARCEL. Well, evidently _I_ couldn't have excited his jealousy. For a long time he has had no reason to suspect me! Were they my letters he was looking for? MADELEINE. That is my affair! MARCEL. Then I am expiating for some one else? MADELEINE. I'm afraid so. MARCEL. Perfect! MADELEINE. Forgive me! MARCEL [_reproachfully_]. So you are deceiving him? MADELEINE. You are a perfect friend to-day! MARCEL. Then you really have a lover? MADELEINE. A second lover! That would be disgraceful, wouldn't it? MARCEL. The first step always brings the worst consequences. MADELEINE. What are you smiling at? MARCEL. Oh, the happiness of others! Well, let's have no bitterness. MADELEINE. No, you might feel remorse! MARCEL. Oh, Madeleine, why am I not the guilty one this time? You are always so beautiful! MADELEINE. Your fault! You should have kept what you had! MARCEL. I thought you were tired of me. MADELEINE. You will never know what I suffered; I cried like an abandoned shopgirl! MARCEL. Not for long, though?