Minard Good-bye—­Julie.  A love that would have flung you into poverty is a thoughtless love.  I have preferred to show the love that sacrifices itself to your happiness—­

Julie
No, I trust you no longer. (In a low voice to her mother) My only
happiness would have been to be his.

Justin (announcing visitors)
M. de la Brive!  M. de Mericourt!

Mercadet Take your daughter away, madame.  M. Minard, follow me. (To Justin) Ask them to wait here for a while. (To Minard) I am well satisfied with you.

(Mme. Mercadet and Julie, Mercadet and Minard go out in opposite directions, while Justin admits Mericourt and De la Brive.)

Scenefourth

De la Brive and Mericourt.

Justin M. Mercadet begs that the gentlemen will wait for him here. (Exit.)

Mericourt At last, my dear friend, you are on the ground, and you will be very soon officially recognized as Mlle. Mercadet’s intended!  Steer your bark well, for the father is a deep one.

De la Brive
That is what frightens me, for difficulties loom ahead.

Mericourt I do not believe so; Mercadet is a speculator, rich to-day, to-morrow possibly a beggar.  With the little I know of his affairs from his wife, I am led to believe that he is enchanted with the prospect of depositing a part of his fortune in the name of his daughter, and of obtaining a son-in-law capable of assisting him in carrying out his financial schemes.

De la Brive That is a good idea, and suits me exactly; but suppose he wishes to find out too much about me.

Mericourt
I have given M. Mercadet an excellent account of you.

De la Brive
I have fallen upon my feet truly.

Mericourt But you are not going to lose the dandy’s self-possession?  I quite understand that your position is risky.  A man would not marry, excepting from utter despair.  Marriage is suicide for the man of the world. (In a low voice) Come, tell me—­can you hold out much longer?

De la Brive If I had not two names, one for the bailiffs and one for the fashionable world, I should be banished from the Boulevard.  Woman and I, as you know, have wrought each the ruin of the other, and, as fashion now goes, to find a rich Englishwoman, an amiable dowager, an amorous gold mine, would be as impossible as to find an extinct animal.

Mericourt
What of the gaming table?

De la Brive Oh!  Gambling is an unreliable resource excepting for certain crooks, and I am not such a fool as to run the risk of disgrace for the sake of winnings which always have their limit.  Publicity, my dear friend, has been the abolition of all those shady careers in which fortune once was to be found.  So, that for a hundred thousand francs of accepted bills, the usurer gives me but ten thousand.  Pierquin sent me to one of his agents, a sort of sub-Pierquin,