de Sallus and M. Jacques de Randol.)
M. DE SALLUS
My dear fellow, you will do me the greatest service if you will pass the whole evening here.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
But I have told you that I cannot.
M. DE SALLUS
Is it altogether – absolutely – impossible?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Absolutely.
M. DE SALLUS
I most earnestly ask you to remain.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
And why?
M. DE SALLUS
For the best of reasons – because – because I want to make peace with my wife.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Peace? Is there a rupture between you?
M. DE SALLUS
Not a very great one, but you know what you have seen this evening.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Is it your fault or hers?
M. DE SALLUS
Oh, mine, I suppose.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
The devil!
M. DE SALLUS
I have had annoyances outside, serious annoyances, and they have made me bad-tempered, so much so that I have been unpleasant and aggressive in my behavior toward her.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
But I don’t see how a third party can contribute toward peace between you.
M. DE SALLUS
My dear fellow, you will enable me to make her understand in an indirect manner, while avoiding all indelicate and wounding explanations, that my ideas concerning life have altogether changed.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Then you wish to be – to be – reconciled to her altogether?
M. DE SALLUS
Oh, no, no, no – on the contrary —
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Pardon me, I do not understand you.
M. DE SALLUS
Listen: I wish to establish and maintain a status quo of a pacific neutrality – a sort of Platonic peace. [Laughs.] But I am going into details that cannot interest you.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Pardon me again. From the moment that you ask me to play a part in this very interesting affair, I must know exactly what part I am to play.
M. DE SALLUS
Why, just a conciliatory rôle.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Then you wish to conclude a peace without restrictions for yourself?
M. DE SALLUS
Now you have it.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
That is to say, that, after the disappointments and annoyances of which you have just told me, and which I presume are ended, you wish to have peace at home and yet be free to enjoy any happiness that you may acquire outside.
M. DE SALLUS
Let me go farther. My dear fellow, the present situation between my wife and myself is very much strained, and I never care to find myself alone with her altogether, because my position is a false one.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Oh, in that case, my dear fellow, I will remain.
M. DE SALLUS
All the evening?
JACQUES DE RANDOL
All the evening.
M. DE SALLUS
My dear De Randol, you are indeed a friend! I shall never forget it.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Oh, never mind that. [A short silence.] Were you at the Opéra last night?
M. DE SALLUS
As usual.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
So it is a good performance?
M. DE SALLUS
Admirable.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
The Santelli scored a great success, didn’t she?
M. DE SALLUS
Not only a success, but a veritable triumph. She was recalled six times.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
She is good, isn’t she?
M. DE SALLUS
More than admirable. She never sang better. In the first act she has a long recitative: “O God of all believers, hear my prayer,” which made the body of the house rise to their feet. And in the third act, after that phrase, “Bright heaven of beauty,” I never saw such enthusiasm.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
She was pleased?
M. DE SALLUS
Pleased? She was enchanted.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
You know her well, don’t you?
M. DE SALLUS
Oh, yes, for some time back. I had supper with her and some of her friends after the performance.
JACQUES DE RANDOL
Were there many of you?
M. DE SALLUS
No, about a dozen. You know she is rather particular.
JACQUES DE RANDOL.
It is pleasant to be intimate with her, is it not?
M. DE SALLUS
Exquisite! And then, you know, she is a woman in a million. I do not know whether you agree with me, but I find there are so few women that are really women.
JACQUES
