I do not know what is passing between your happiness and mine.... Oh, look at me and touch my hands, that I may know where you are!... Oh, if you speak like that, then it was not you whom I saw this morning in the wonderful garden where I gave away my soul!... No, there is something that is mocking our strength.... It is not possible that all is thus lost because of a single word.... I am seeking, I am all astray.... I saw you, then, and saw all truth and all trust, as one suddenly sees the sea between the trees!... I was sure, I knew.... Love did not deceive me.... It deceives me now!... It cannot be that all this should crumble away for a yea or a nay.... No, no, I will not have it!... Come, it is not too late; we have not yet lost our happiness.... It is all in our hands, which close upon it.... What you have just done was mad, perhaps.... I forget it, I laugh at it, I saw nothing, I tell you!... It does not exist: you can wipe it out with a word.... You well know, as I do, that love has words which nothing can resist and that the greatest fault, when confessed in a loyal kiss, becomes a truth more beautiful than innocence.... Speak that word to me; give me that kiss; confess the truth, confess what I saw, what I heard; and all will again become pure as it was and I shall recover all that you gave me.... LANCÉOR. I have said what I have said; if you do not believe me, go away, you annoy me.... JOYZELLE. Look me in the face.... Do you love her, since you lie like that?... LANCÉOR. No, I love no one and you less than the others.... JOYZELLE. Lancéor!... What have I done?... Perhaps, without knowing.... LANCÉOR. Nothing, it is not that.... But I am not what you thought and I do not care to be.... I am like other men; I wish you to know it and make the best of it.... I want all our promises to be scattered to the wind of some new dream, like this dead leaf which I crumple in my hand.... Ah, the love of women!... Well, so much the worse for them!... I shall live like other men in a faithless world, where no one loves, where all oaths yield to the first test.... Ah, tears!... They were bound to come, I expected them!... You are hard, I know, and your tears are scarce.... I count them drop by drop!... You did not love me!... Love which comes thus, at the first call, is not that on which happiness is based.... In any case, it is not that which I hoped for.... More tears!... They flow too late!... You did not love me, I did not love you.... Another would have said.... Ah, another would have known!... But you, no, no; go away!... Go away, go away, I say!... [_JOYZELLE moves away silently, sobbing. When she has taken a few steps, she turns back, hesitates, looks sadly at LANCÉOR and disappears with a suppressed cry_, "I love you!..." _LANCÉOR, overwhelmed, bewildered, staggers away and leans against the trunk of a tree._ LANCÉOR.