Always this raillery!
MME. DE SALLUS No, I want to speak to you seriously
about him, and to ask your advice.
About your husband?
MME. DE SALLUS [seriously]
Yes, I am not laughing, or rather I do not laugh any
more. [In lighter tone.] Then you are not jealous
of my husband? And yet you know he is the only
man who has authority over me.
It is just because he has authority that I am not
jealous. A woman’s heart gives nothing
to the man who has authority.
My dear, a husband’s right is a positive thing;
it is a title-deed that he can lock up—just
as my husband has for more than two years—but
it is also one that he can use at any given moment,
as lately he has seemed inclined to do.
JACQUES DE RANDOL [astonished]
You tell me that your husband—
Yes.
Impossible!
MME. DE SALLUS [bridles]
And why impossible?
Because your husband has—has—other
occupations.
Well, it pleases him to vary them, it seems.
Jesting apart, Madeline, what has happened?
Ah! Ah! Then you are becoming jealous
of him.
Madeline, I implore you; tell me, are you mocking
me, or are you speaking seriously?
I am speaking seriously, indeed, very seriously.
Then what has happened?
Well, you know my position, although I have never
told you all my past life. It is all very simple
and very brief. At the age of nineteen I married
the Count de Sallus, who fell in love with me after
he had seen me at the Opera-Comique. He already
knew my father’s lawyer. He was very nice
to me in those early days; yes, very nice, and I really
believed he loved me. As for myself, I was very
circumspect in my behavior toward him, very circumspect
indeed, so that he could never cast a shadow of reproach
on my name.
