bending towards me, I see it consenting; and I call for the token which nothing can efface henceforth.... (_He kisses her passionately. A cry of distress is heard from behind the bushes._) What is it?... [_ARIELLE releases herself from his embrace, flies and disappears. Enter JOYZELLE._ JOYZELLE. (_Dismayed._) Lancéor!... LANCÉOR. Why, where do you come from, Joyzelle? JOYZELLE. I have seen and heard.... LANCÉOR. Well, what?... What have you seen?... Look around you: there is nothing to see.... The oleanders are in flower, the water in the basin sleeps, the doves are cooing, the water-lilies are opening their petals: that is all that I see, all that you can see.... JOYZELLE. Do you love her? LANCÉOR. Whom?... JOYZELLE. The woman who has just fled.... LANCÉOR. How should I love her?... I had never seen her.... The woman was there; I happened to pass.... She gave a loud scream.... I ran up.... She seemed to have lost her footing and, as I held out my hand to her, she gave me the kiss which you heard.... JOYZELLE. Is it really you speaking? LANCÉOR. Yes, look at me: it is really and wholly I.... Come nearer, touch me if you doubt it.... JOYZELLE. The proof was terrible; but this is mortal.... LANCÉOR. What?... JOYZELLE. Was this the first time that you saw that woman?... LANCÉOR. Yes. JOYZELLE. I shall not speak of it again.... I shall understand, perhaps; in any case, I forgive.... LANCÉOR. There is nothing to forgive. JOYZELLE. What do you say?... LANCÉOR. I say that I have no need for the pardon with which you overwhelm a fault which I have not committed. JOYZELLE. Which you have not committed?... Then I did not see what I saw nor hear what I heard?... LANCÉOR. No. JOYZELLE. Lancéor!... LANCÉOR. Lancéor! Lancéor!... If you called me by my name for a thousand years and more, it would alter nothing in what was nothing!... JOYZELLE.