SYLVETTE.  No, the dear remembrance is gone.  All those masks and torches, the soft music, the duel; it is too cruel to think that Straforel prepared it all.

PERCINET.  But who prepared the spring night?  Was that Straforel?  Did he also sprinkle the sky with stars?  Did he plant roses, did he create the gray of evening and the blue mists of night? did he have anything to do with the rising of that huge pink star?

SYLVETTE.  No, of course—­

PERCINET.  Was it his doing that we were two children of twenty, on a spring night, and that we loved each other?  We loved, that was the charm—­all the charm!

SYLVETTE.  All the—?  That’s true, yet—­

PERCINET.  A tear?  Am I then—­forgiven?

SYLVETTE.  I have always loved you, my poor dear.

PERCINET.  At last I have you again! [He takes SYLVETTE’s scarf and plays with it.] What beautiful shades and lights in this gorgeous satin.

SYLVETTE.  What satin?

PERCINET.  Oh, nothing!  Nothing!

SYLVETTE.  But it’s only muslin!

PERCINET. [Kneeling and kissing her hand] No, it is everything!

SYLVETTE. [Falling into his arms] See?  I know now that poetry and romance are in the hearts of lovers; they have nothing to do with other things.

PERCINET.  That is true, Sylvette.  I have seen what ought to be poetry and romance, but it wasn’t—­to me!

SYLVETTE.  And what was prepared for and arranged beforehand was real, though it was contrived for us by others.

PERCINET.  We can weave realities on a false frame.

SYLVETTE.  How foolish we were to seek elsewhere for romance, when it was our own hearts!

[STRAFOREL appears, followed by the two fathers, and shows them SYLVETTE and PERCINET in each other’s arms.]

STRAFOREL.  Ah!

BERGAMIN.  My son! [He embraces PERCINET.]

STRAFOREL.  Now do I get my money?

PASQUINOT. [To his daughter] Do you love him?

SYLVETTE.  Yes.

STRAFOREL. [To BERGAMIN] Shall I have my money?

BERGAMIN.  You shall.

SYLVETTE. [Trembling as she hears STRAFOREL’s voice and recognizes it] But—­that voice—­the Marquis D’Asta—­fior—­

STRAFOREL. [Bowing] —­quercita.  Yes, my dear Mademoiselle, ’Tis Straforel.  Pardon my excessive zeal.  I have a least taught you how tiresome and hollow and useless real adventures are.  You might, like this young man, have had your share, but I allowed you to see them in prospect through the magic-lantern of my imagination.

PERCINET.  What is this?

SYLVETTE. [Quickly] Nothing, nothing.  I love you!

BERGAMIN. [Pointing to the wall] And to-morrow we shall knock down these few rows of bricks!

PASQUINOT.  Yes, away with it!

STRAFOREL.  No, let us finish it; it is indispensable.