Henriette.  Too late to think of that now—­Hush!

(Adolphe enters, pale and hollow-eyed.)

Maurice. [Trying to speak unconcernedly] There you are!  What became of you last night?

Adolphe.  I looked for you at the Hotel des Arrets and waited a whole hour.

Maurice.  So you went to the wrong place.  We were waiting several hours for you at the Auberge des Adrets, and we are still waiting for you, as you see.

Adolphe. [Relieved] Thank heaven!

Henriette.  Good morning, Adolphe.  You are always expecting the worst and worrying yourself needlessly.  I suppose you imagined that we wanted to avoid your company.  And though you see that we sent for you, you are still thinking yourself superfluous.

Adolphe.  Pardon me:  I was wrong, but the night was dreadful.

(They sit down.  Embarrassed silence follows.)

Henriette. [To Adolphe] Well, are you not going to congratulate
Maurice on his great success?

Adolphe.  Oh, yes!  Your success is the real thing, and envy itself cannot deny it.  Everything is giving way before you, and even I have a sense of my own smallness in your presence.

Maurice.  Nonsense!—­Henriette, are you not going to offer Adolphe a glass of wine?

Adolphe.  Thank you, not for me—­nothing at all!

Henriette. [To Adolphe] What’s the matter with you?  Are you ill?

Adolphe.  Not yet, but—­

Henriette.  Your eyes—­

Adolphe.  What of them?

Maurice.  What happened at the Cremerie last night?  I suppose they are angry with me?

Adolphe.  Nobody is angry with you, but your absence caused a depression which it hurt me to watch.  But nobody was angry with you, believe me.  Your friends understood, and they regarded your failure to come with sympathetic forbearance.  Madame Catherine herself defended you and proposed your health.  We all rejoiced in your success as if it had been our own.

Henriette.  Well, those are nice people!  What good friends you have, Maurice.

Maurice.  Yes, better than I deserve.

Adolphe.  Nobody has better friends than he deserves, and you are a man greatly blessed in his friends—­Can’t you feel how the air is softened to-day by all the kind thoughts and wishes that stream toward you from a thousand breasts?

(Maurice rises in order to hide his emotion.)

Adolphe.  From a thousand breasts that you have rid of the nightmare that had been crushing them during a lifetime.  Humanity had been slandered—­and you have exonerated it:  that’s why men feel grateful toward you.  To-day they are once more holding their heads high and saying:  You see, we are a little better than our reputation after all.  And that thought makes them better.