Percinet.  Oh, I assure you it’s not serious.

Sylvette.  But what have you been doing, Monsieur Vagabond, all this while?

Percinet.  Nothing very creditable, Sylvette. [He coughs.]

Sylvette.  You are coughing?

Percinet.  Walking the damp roads at night.

Sylvette.  What strange clothes you have!

Percinet.  Mine were stolen, and the thieves left me these.

Sylvette. [Ironically] How many fortunes did you find?

Percinet.  Sylvette, please say nothing about that.

Sylvette.  You must have scaled many a balcony?

Percinet. [Aside] I nearly broke my neck once!

Sylvette.  Guitar in hand!  And what nocturnes and serenades you must have sung!

Percinet.  Which earned for me more than one bucket of water!

Sylvette.  But I see you have been wounded in a real duel?

Percinet.  It came near being mortal.

Sylvette.  And now you return to us—?

Percinet.  Thoroughly worn-out.

Sylvette.  Yes, but you have at least found romance and poetry?

Percinet.  No—­I was seeking afar what was here all the time. 
Don’t make fun of me:  I adore you!

Sylvette.  Even after our disillusion?

Percinet.  What difference does that make?

Sylvette.  But our fathers played an abominable trick on us.

Percinet.  What of it?  What I feel in my heart is real.

Sylvette.  They pretended to hate each other.

Percinet.  Did we pretend that we loved?

Sylvette.  The wall was a punch-and-judy theater—­you said so yourself.

Percinet.  I did, Sylvette, but it was blasphemy.  Ah. wall, you gave us a divine setting, with moonlight and stars, flowers and vines, the four winds for music, and Shakespeare for prompter!  Yes, our fathers made us go through the motions, but it was Love that made us speak:  it pulled the strings!

SYLVETTE. [Sighing] That’s true, but we loved because we believed it was wicked!

PERCINET.  And it was!  Only the intention counts, and thinking we were guilty, we were!

SYLVETTE.  Really?

PERCINET.  Really, my dear, we were infamous.  It was wrong of us to love.

SYLVETTE. [Seating herself beside him] Very wrong? [She changes her tone, as she rises and goes away.] Still, I wish the danger had been a little more real.

PERCINET.  It was real, because we believed it so.

SYLVETTE.  No:  my abduction, like your duel, was false.

PERCINET.  Was your fear false?  If you were afraid then, it was as if you were really being abducted.