MME. DUPONT [_carelessly, to Courthezon, who has stopped_] Go on. It’s only Caroline. [_Interested_] And you still won’t tell us what it is? COURTHEZON. Not yet. [_Rising, bowing to Caroline_] Good day, Mlle. Caroline. CAROLINE [_half-returning his bow_] Good day, M. Courthezon. MME. DUPONT. I can imagine how pleased you are. COURTHEZON. Of course I am. CAROLINE. You have finished your invention! COURTHEZON. Yes. How did you guess? CAROLINE [_a little confused_] Oh, only— COURTHEZON. Only? CAROLINE [_in a lower voice_] Only that I knew it. COURTHEZON. You knew it? CAROLINE [_confused_] Yes. But never mind about that. MME. DUPONT [_to Courthezon_] And now you will become a rich man, eh, M. Courthezon? COURTHEZON. Not all at once. I must first find someone who will buy my invention, or who will advance me money to push it for myself. But there’s plenty of time to think of all that: and whether I succeed or not, I am glad to have given twenty years of my life to inventing something that will make life a little easier for those who will come after me. And now I am going downstairs to the office to do a little work. You’ll send down that announcement, won’t you? MME. DUPONT. I won’t forget. COURTHEZON. Good evening, Madame Dupont. Good evening, Mlle. Caroline. CAROLINE & MME. DUPONT. Good evening, M. Courthezon. _Courthezon goes out._ MME. DUPONT. Why were you so sure he had completed his invention? CAROLINE [_confused, after a moment’s silence_] You won’t tell anyone, mother? MME. DUPONT. No. CAROLINE. Because I prayed for it. MME. DUPONT [_not spitefully, but with a slight shrug of the shoulders_] I see. _Julie comes in._ JULIE. Here I am, maman [_she kisses her_]. You here, Caro? [_She does not kiss her_]. MME. DUPONT. Ah, Julie! Sit down, dear, and tell me what you have been doing and whom you have seen. [_Her warm greeting to Julie contrasts markedly with the cold reception she previously gave to Caroline_]. JULIE. I went to see Madame Leseigneur. MME. DUPONT. I might have guessed that. JULIE. Why? MME. DUPONT. You only go to houses where there are children. And as Madame Leseigneur has six— JULIE. I wish I were in her place. Only think: André, the youngest, you know, the one who is only six months old? MME. DUPONT. Yes. JULIE. He _recognised_ me. There never _was_ such a baby for taking notice. MME. DUPONT. You talk as if you were a mother yourself. JULIE. Jean laughed till he cried when he saw what I had brought him. Charles and Pierre were in disgrace because they’d been fighting. But I got their mother to forgive them, so that was all right. To-morrow I shall go to Madame Durand to hear how Jacques is going on. I hear he has the whooping-cough. MME. DUPONT [_laughing_] You ought to have been a nurse. JULIE [_seriously_] No, no. I should have died when I had to leave the first child I had nursed. MME. DUPONT. Then you should marry. JULIE. Yes. [_Pause_].