MAURICE. Suppose we talk of—love?
HENRIETTE. Of that you don't talk until it is over.
MAURICE. Have you been in love with Adolphe?
HENRIETTE. I don't know. The goodness of his nature drew me like some beautiful, all but vanished memory of childhood. Yet there was much about his person that offended my eye, so that I had to spend a long time retouching, altering, adding, subtracting, before I could make a presentable figure of him. When he talked, I could notice that he had learned from you, and the lesson was often badly digested and awkwardly applied. You can imagine then how miserable the copy must appear now, when I am permitted to study the original. That's why he was afraid of having us two meet; and when it did happen, he understood at once that his time was up.
MAURICE. Poor Adolphe!
HENRIETTE. I feel sorry for him, too, as I know he must be suffering beyond all bounds—
MAURICE. Sh! Somebody is coming.
HENRIETTE. I wonder if it could be he?
MAURICE. That would be unbearable.
HENRIETTE. No, it isn't he, but if it had been, how do you think the situation would have shaped itself?