Justin (announcing)
M. Goulard!

(Exit Justin.)

Scenesixth

The same persons and Goulard.

Goulard (in anger)
Ah! you can be found, sir, when you want to be!

Mme. Mercadet (aside to her husband)
My dear, how angry he seems!

Mercadet (making a sign that she should be calm)
This is one of my creditors, my dear.

Goulard
Yes, and I sha’n’t leave this house until you pay me.

Mercadet (aside) You sha’n’t leave this house until you give me some money—­(Aloud) Ah! you have persecuted me most unkindly—­me, a man with whom you have had such extensive dealings!

Goulard
Dealings which have not always been to my advantage.

Mercadet
All the more credit to you, for if advantage were the sole results of
business, everybody would become a money-lender.

Goulard I hope you haven’t asked me to come here, in order to show me how clever you are!  I know that you are cleverer than I am, for you have got over me in money matters.

Mercadet Well, money matters have some importance. (To his wife) Yes, yes, you see in this man one who has hunted me as if I were a hare.  Come, come, Goulard, admit it, you have behaved badly.  Anybody but myself would have taken vengeance on you—­for of course I could cause you to lose a considerable sum of money.

Goulard
So you could, if you didn’t pay me; but you shall pay me—­your
obligations are now in the hands of the law.

Mme. Mercadet
Of the law?

Mercadet
Of the law!  You are losing your senses, you don’t know what you are
doing, you are ruining us both—­yourself and me—­at the same time.

Goulard (anxiously)
How?—­You—­that of course is possible—­but—­but—­me?

Mercadet
Both of us, I tell you!  Quick, sit down there—­write—­write—!

Goulard (mechanically taking his pen)
Write—­write what?

Mercadet
Write to Delannoy that he must make them stay the proceedings, and
give me the thousand crowns which I absolutely need.

Goulard (throwing down the pen)
That is very likely, indeed!

Mercadet
You hesitate, and, when I am on the eve of marrying my daughter to a
man immensely wealthy—­that is the time you choose to cause my arrest. 
And by that means you are killing both your capital and interest!

Goulard
Ah! you are going to marry your daughter—­

Mercadet
To the Comte de la Brive; he possesses as many thousand francs as he
is years old!

Goulard Then if he is up in years, there is reason for giving you some delay.  But the thousand crowns—­the thousand crowns—­never.—­I am quite decided on that point.  I will give you nothing, neither delay nor—­I must go now—­

Mercadet (with energy)
Very well!  You can go if you like, you ungrateful fellow!—­But don’t
forget that I have done my best to save you.