LUCIE. Gone! She’s left a note. She’s gone to look for him. Quick! Your carriage is here. Go and find her. Help her! MADELEINE. Gone! LUCIE. Yes. Quick! Go! _Madeleine goes out. Enter Brignac._ BRIGNAC. What is all this noise about? LUCIE. Julien, I’ve something very serious to say to you. A disaster has fallen on us. BRIGNAC. The children! LUCIE. No; it’s about Annette. BRIGNAC. Is she ill? LUCIE. Not ill, but in cruel, horrible grief. BRIGNAC. Grief at her age! A love affair, eh? She’s been jilted? LUCIE. That’s it. BRIGNAC. Whew! I breathe again. You frightened me. Not so very serious. LUCIE. Yes; it is. My dear, you must listen with all your heart and with all your mind—and be kind. BRIGNAC. But what’s the matter? LUCIE. Annette has fallen in love with a scoundrel who has deceived her. The poor child committed the mistake of trusting him completely. He promised to marry her and took advantage of her innocence to seduce her. [_Low_] Understand me, Julien: she is going to have a baby in six months. BRIGNAC. Annette? LUCIE. Annette. BRIGNAC. Impossible. It’s— LUCIE. It was she who confessed to me. She is sure of it. BRIGNAC [_after a silence_] Who’s the man? LUCIE. Jacques Bernin. BRIGNAC. Jacques Bernin! LUCIE. Yes. BRIGNAC [_furious_] Here’s a fine piece of business! Ha, at the moment of my election, too! Magnificent! Oh, she’s done me to rights, your sister has! All’s up with me now. We may as well pack our trunks and be off. LUCIE. You exaggerate. BRIGNAC. Do I? I tell you if she had been caught stealing—stealing, do you hear?—it wouldn’t have been worse. Even that would have compromised me less—thrown me less absolutely out of the running. LUCIE. Leave that till later. Now the thing is to save her. You’ll go tomorrow morning, won’t you, Julien, and find this fellow? Make him see what an abominable crime it would be for him to desert our poor little girl. BRIGNAC. Much you know him, M. Jacques Bernin. But I do! He’ll laugh in my face. His one idea is to get on in the world. Why, he was talking of his engagement to Mademoiselle Dormance two months ago and chortling over her shekels. Good lord, what a man for your sister to hit upon! LUCIE. But you won’t abandon her? BRIGNAC. Yes; I’m in a nice place. Who’d have thought it? So this is the thanks I get for all I’ve done for her! LUCIE. Don’t fly into a rage! BRIGNAC. Her! her! A child brought up in the strictest principles, brought up at home here by you and me, not allowed to read novels or go to the theatre! She hasn’t even the excuse of having been to a boarding school. Why, sometimes we could hardly help laughing at her ignorance of life. LUCIE. Perhaps if she had been less ignorant, she would have run less risk. BRIGNAC [_breaking out_] That’s right! Now it’s all my fault! LUCIE. Don’t get into a passion! BRIGNAC. I shall if I like! And I think there’s some reason, too! Annette! LUCIE. Annette is only a victim.