LUCIE. You are happy to be able to go to the country. Annette was so delighted to get your kind invitation. MME. BERNIN. That was precisely my object in calling here today—apart from the pleasure of seeing you—to talk about that plan of ours. LUCIE. And about another one, I think? MME. BERNIN. Another? LUCIE. No? MME. BERNIN. No; I don’t know what you are referring to. LUCIE. Oh, I beg your pardon, then. Please go on. About Annette? MME. BERNIN. My daughter has had an invitation to join our cousins, the Guibals, for some time, and we absolutely cannot refuse to send Gabrielle to them. So I came to ask you to excuse us, as Gabrielle will not be there. LUCIE. Will you forgive me for being indiscreet? MME. BERNIN. I am sure you couldn’t be. LUCIE. I wanted to ask you, is it long since Gabrielle received this invitation? MME. BERNIN. About a week. LUCIE. Indeed! MME. BERNIN. Why should that surprise you? LUCIE. She said nothing about it to Annette. MME. BERNIN. She was probably afraid of disappointing her. LUCIE. Only yesterday Annette was telling me of all the excursions that your daughter had planned to make with her. Please, please, tell me the truth. This invitation is merely an excuse; I feel convinced it is. Please tell me. Annette is only my sister, but I love her as though she were my child. Think it’s her mother who is speaking to you. I won’t try to be clever. I’m not going to stand on my dignity. This is what has happened. Annette believes that your son loves her, and when your card was brought in she imagined that you had come to ask her for him. Now you know everything that I know, and I beg you to talk as candidly to me, so that we may avoid as much unhappiness as possible. MME. BERNIN. You have spoken to me so simply and feelingly that I can’t help answering openly—from the bottom of my heart. Yes, then, this invitation to Gabrielle is only an excuse. We have invented it to prevent Jacques and Annette from meeting again. LUCIE. You don’t want them to meet again? MME. BERNIN. No; because I don’t want them to marry. LUCIE. Because Annette is poor? MME. BERNIN [_hesitates, then_] Well, since we have agreed to be perfectly candid, that is the reason. LUCIE. You would not consent to the idea of their marrying? MME. BERNIN. No. LUCIE. Is that absolutely final? MME. BERNIN. Absolutely final. LUCIE. Because Annette has no dowry? MME. BERNIN. Yes. LUCIE. But your son knew that she was poor. It’s monstrous of him to have made her love him.