MME. BERNIN. No; we have not been happy, because we have used ourselves up with hunting for happiness. We meant to ‘get there’; we have ‘got there,’ but at what a price! Oh, I know the road to fortune. At first miserable, sordid economy, passionate greed; then the fierce struggle of trickery and deceit, always flattering your customers, always living in terror of failure. Tears, lies, envy, contempt. Suffering for yourself and for everyone round you. I’ve been through it, and a bitter experience it was. We’re determined that our children shan’t. Our children! We have had only two, but we meant to have only one. That extra one meant double toil and hardship. Instead of being a husband and wife helping one another, we have been two business partners, watching each other like enemies, perpetually quarrelling, even on our very pillow, over our expenditure or our mistakes. Finally we succeeded; and now we can’t enjoy our wealth because we don’t know how to use it, and because our later years are poisoned by memories of the hateful past of suffering and rancor. No; I shall never expose my children to that struggle. I only stood it to preserve them from it. Good bye. LUCIE. Good bye. _Madame Bernin goes out. After a moment Lucie goes slowly to Annette’s door and opens it._ ANNETTE [_coming in_] You’ve been crying! It’s because I’m going away, isn’t it? There’s nothing to prevent us, is there? [_With rising emotion_] Lucie, tell me there’s nothing! LUCIE. You love him so much? ANNETTE. If we were not to be married, I should die. LUCIE. No; you wouldn’t. Have all the little girls who said that died? ANNETTE. But there is nothing to prevent us, is there? LUCIE. No, no. ANNETTE. And when is it to be? Did you talk of that? LUCIE. My dear, my dear, what a state you’re in! You really must be less nervous. ANNETTE [_restraining herself_] Yes, sweet, yes; I’m a little crazy. LUCIE. I think you are. ANNETTE. Tell me, then, everything. How did she begin? LUCIE. Are you in such a hurry to leave me? You don’t love me any more? ANNETTE [_gravely_] Oh, if I hadn’t got you, what would become of me? [_A silence_]. But you’re not telling me anything. There must be something. You’re keeping the truth from me. If there wasn’t something, you’d say there wasn’t—you wouldn’t try to put me off—you’d tell me just what Madame Bernin said. LUCIE. Well, then, there is something. ANNETTE [_breaking into tears_] Oh, heavens! LUCIE. You’re both very young. You must wait. A year, perhaps longer. ANNETTE [_crying_] Wait! A year! LUCIE. Come, come, you must not be so uncontrolled, Annette. You’ll make me displeased with you. Why, you are barely nineteen. If you wait to be married till you are twenty, there’ll be no great harm. ANNETTE. It isn’t possible. LUCIE. Not possible? [_With a long look at her_] Annette, you frighten me. If it were not you— [_With tender gravity_] I can’t have been wrong to trust you?