Darkness falls on the scene. Lescaut is attracted to the card-players, and joins them quickly in the hopes of adding to his store of wealth, and Geronte bargains with the innkeeper for a post-chaise and some swift horses, giving instructions that a lady will want to pop off very quickly to Paris in a short time. Edmund overhears this little plot, and discloses it to his friend Des Grieux. A short characteristic orchestral passage with a changing unrestful rhythm leads up to Manon's entrance. With a _naïveté_ expressed in the music she sings, she comes to Des Grieux and tells him that she has kept her thoughtless promise. In a beautifully phrased impassioned passage Des Grieux urgently presses his suit. Manon, who continues to hang back a little, is overcome, and when an interruption from her brother, on whom the effects of wine is beginning to tell, startles them out of their ecstatic rapture, she attempts to return to the inn. But Des Grieux takes her away, and tells her of the plot of the old reprobate to abduct her, and urges her to escape with himself. Edmund now tells Geronte of the escape of his prize, and that disappointed old _roué_ tries to rouse the brother from his lethargy. Lescaut decides that pursuit is worthless, and suggests following the pair to Paris, whither he is sure they have gone. Geronte stifles his fury and goes in to supper, while the students join in with a merry chorus, laughing at the old man's discomfiture as the act ends. A few bars of a light tripping measure against a slight accompaniment of pizzicato chords from the strings opens the second act, the scene of which shows Manon installed in Geronte's luxurious house in Paris. Manon's toilette is being finished off by the perruquier, and the detached remarks and inquiries for the various articles necessary are musically "popped in" with a skilful hand. The brother comes in, and while the finishing process is still proceeding, he congratulates his sister on the transference of her affections from the penniless Des Grieux to the rich old nobleman. Manon, however, is by no means "off" with the old love, and in a tender little melody she sings of the humble dwelling where she and her lover passed a blissful time. Like so many of Puccini's melodies it begins by a reiteration of a single note, which gradually spreads itself into a lyrical flow. This works up into an expressive little duet, in which Manon longs for Des Grieux's return, and Lescaut promises to make him a successful gamester in order to gather in the necessary funds.