DUCHESS. (_To_ MME. DE CÉRAN) If you think it pleases those two to separate them like that—— JEANNE. (_Aside_) I’ve gone too far! MME. DE CÉRAN. (_To_ JEANNE) Aren’t you pleased with this arrangement? JEANNE. Perfectly, Madame la comtesse; and you know better than anyone else _quid deceat, quid non_. (_She bows_) MME. DE CÉRAN. (_To_ PAUL) She is perfectly charming! (_They go out_; PAUL _right_, JEANNE _left_.) DUCHESS. (_Seated near the table at the left, working at her fancy-work_) Ah, she knows Latin! She ought to be congenial to the company! MME. DE CÉRAN. You know Revel is very ill. DUCHESS. He is never anything else,—what’s that to me? MME. DE CÉRAN. (_Sitting down_) What do you mean, Aunt? Revel is a second Saint-Réault. He holds at least fifteen positions: leader of the New School, for instance—a position which leads to any number of others! Just the thing for Roger. He returns to-day, and I’ve asked the Minister’s secretary to dinner this evening, you know. DUCHESS. Yes, a new one: Toulonnier. MME. DE CÉRAN. I take away his position from him to-night. DUCHESS. So you want to make your son the leader of a school? MME. DE CÉRAN. It’ll be another stepping-stone, you know, Aunt. DUCHESS. You have brought him up to be a mere chess-pawn, haven’t you? MME. DE CÉRAN. I have made of him a serious-minded man, Aunt. DUCHESS. Yes, I should think so! A man of twenty-eight, who has never—done a foolish thing in his life, I’ll wager! It’s a perfect shame! MME. DE CÉRAN. At thirty he will enter the Institute, and at thirty-five the Chamber of Deputies. DUCHESS. So you want to begin again with your son, and do with him as you did with his father? MME. DE CÉRAN. Did I make so miserable a failure of him? DUCHESS. I say nothing about your husband: a dryasdust creature, with a mediocre intellect—! MME. DE CÉRAN. Aunt! DUCHESS. Of course, your husband was a fool! MME. DE CÉRAN. Duchess! DUCHESS. A fool who happened to know how to behave himself! You forced him into politics, you’ll admit that. And then, all you could make of him was Minister of Agriculture and Commerce. That isn’t much to boast about. But enough of him; Roger’s another matter: he has brains and spirit enough—or will have, God willing—or he’s no nephew of mine. That never occurred to you, did it? MME. DE CÉRAN. I am thinking of his career. DUCHESS. And his happiness? MME. DE CÉRAN. I have thought of that, too. DUCHESS. Ah, yes! Lucy, eh? They correspond, I know that. That’s fine! A young girl who wears glasses and has a neck like a——! And you call that thinking of his happiness! MME. DE CÉRAN. Duchess, you are quite incorrigible! DUCHESS. A sort of meteorite, who fell among us, intending to stop two weeks, and remained two years: a blue-stocking who writes letters to scholars and translates Schopenhauer!