Lignol LEWIS CASSON M. Pouchelet G. M. GRAHAM Mme. Pouchelet DORA BARTON Françoise FLORENCE ADALE Angèle GERTRUDE BURNETT ACT I _A very undistinguished room in a house in a French country town. The time is February. There is in the centre of the room a table, with chairs round it; a fireplace on the left, and window on the right; a piano; lamps; a bronze statuette of Gutenberg; holland covers on the furniture. There are doors to right and left and at the back._ _Madame Dupont is discovered alone, darning stockings. After a moment or two Courthezon comes in, with some papers in his hand._ COURTHEZON. Why, you’re all alone, Madame Dupont? MME. DUPONT. Yes, M. Courthezon. COURTHEZON. Your young ladies are listening to the band? MME. DUPONT. No: Julie has gone to pay a call, and Caroline is at Benediction. She goes every Sunday. COURTHEZON. Oh, yes, of course. MME. DUPONT. On Sunday we never see her, except at déjeûner. The rest of the day she’s at church. I believe she never misses a service. And now she is one of the Enfants de Marie. At her age, too! COURTHEZON. How old is she? MME. DUPONT. Thirty-three. COURTHEZON. And still very religious? MME. DUPONT. Very. COURTHEZON [_nodding_] Her mother was just the same. MME. DUPONT. You remember my husband’s first wife? COURTHEZON. Yes. I came to the printing office two years before she died. [_Pause_] M. Dupont is at his game at the Café du Commerce, no doubt? I should be there myself if I could afford it. MME. DUPONT. You have your savings. COURTHEZON. Precisely; and I don’t want to lose them. But you are working, Madame Dupont? MME. DUPONT. Mending some stockings. One must find something to do. COURTHEZON. I’ve been hard at it, too, all day. MME. DUPONT. Still at your invention? COURTHEZON. Yes. I tell you it’s splendid. I’ve been downstairs to the printing office to see if there were any orders. MME. DUPONT. Were there any? COURTHEZON [_looking through papers in his hand_] Three hundred visiting cards, a price list, and an announcement. MME. DUPONT [_stopping her work_] Death? Birth? COURTHEZON. Neither. A marriage. MME. DUPONT. Give it me. [_Reads paper which Courthezon gives her_] M. Jacquemin. M. Jacquemin! And who is this Mlle. Martha Violet whom he is marrying? COURTHEZON. One of the Violets of the Rue du Pré. MME. DUPONT. Oh, yes: of course. [_To Courthezon, who makes as if to take back the paper_] Leave it with me. I will send it down to you. I want to show it to Julie. So you are pleased with your invention? COURTHEZON [_sitting down_] I am delighted with it. Delighted! I’ve been working at it twenty years! And now it’s finished. What do you think of that? _Enter Caroline. She is tall, stringy, not pretty, not attractive, but not absurd. She has a prayer-book in her hand._