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 Crêmerie 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.)