Agnes.  Well?

St. Olpherts.  Afflicted with a desperate craving for the opium-like drug, adulation; persistently seeking the society of those whose white, pink-tipped fingers fill the pernicious pipe most deftly and delicately.  Eh?

Agnes.  I didn’t—­Pray, go on.

St. Olpherts.  Ha!  I remember they looked to his marriage to check his dangerous fancy for the flutter of lace, the purr of pretty women.  And now, here, he is—­loose again.

Agnes. [Suffering.] Oh!—­

St. Olpherts.  In short, in intellect still nothing but a callow boy; in body, nervous, bloodless, hysterical; in morals—­an epicure.

Agnes.  Have done!  Have done!

St. Olpherts.  “Epicure” offends you.  A vain woman would find consolation in the word.

Agnes.  Enough of it!  Enough!  Enough! [She turns away, beating her hands together.  The light in the room has gradually become subdued; the warm tinge of sunset now colours the scene outside the window.]

St. Olpherts. [With a shrug of his shoulders.] The real Lucas Cleeve.

Agnes.  No, no!  Untrue, untrue! [Lucas enters.  The three remain silent for a moment.] The Duke of St. Olpherts calls in answer to a letter I wrote to him yesterday.  I wanted to make his acquaintance. [She goes out.]

Lucas. [After a brief pause.] By a lucky accident the tables were crowded at Florian’s; I might have missed the chance of welcoming you.  In God’s name, Duke, why must you come here?

St. Olpherts. [Fumbling in his pocket for a note.] In God’s name?  You bring the orthodoxy into this queer firm, then, Lucas? [Handing the note to Lucas.] A peremptory summons.

Lucas.  You need not have obeyed it. [St. Olpherts takes a cigarette from his case and limps away.] I looked about for you just now.  I wanted to see you.

St. Olpherts.  How fortunate—­

Lucas.  To tell you that this persecution must come to an end.  It has made me desperately wretched for a whole week.

St. Olpherts.  Persecution?

Lucas.  Temptation.

St. Olpherts.  Dear Lucas, the process of inducing a man to return to his wife isn’t generally described as temptation.

Lucas.  Ah, I won’t hear another word of that proposal. [St. Olpherts shrugs his shoulders.] I say my people are offering me, through you, a deliberate temptation to be a traitor.  To which of these two women—­my wife or—­[pointing to the door]—­to her—­am I really bound now?  It may be regrettable, scandalous, but the common rules of right and wrong have ceased to apply here.  Finally, Duke—­and this is my message—­I intend to keep faith with the woman who sat by my bedside in Rome, the woman to whom I shouted my miserable story in my delirium, the woman whose calm, resolute voice healed me, hardened me, renewed in me the desire to live.