Mme. de Céran. Without fortune! Without family!
Duchess. Without family? The daughter of my poor Georges? My handsome, good, kind Georges!—And she’s your cousin after all!
Mme. de Céran. A natural child!
Duchess. Natural? Aren’t all children natural? You amuse me! She’s been legally recognized! And good heavens, when the devil’s put his finger in the pie why shouldn’t the rest of us? Me, too, eh?
Mme. de Céran. The devil has put his finger in the pie, but not the way you think. You are on the false scent.
Duchess. Oh, the Professor! Yes, Bellac. You told me that. You think no woman can follow his lectures without falling in love with him?
Mme. de Céran. But Suzanne hasn’t missed a single lecture, Aunt, and she takes notes and corrects them and copies them—I tell you Suzanne is in earnest. And while he is speaking she never takes her eyes off him; she drinks in every word. And you think that is all for the sake of science! Nonsense, it isn’t the science she loves, it’s the scientist. That is as plain as day. You have only to watch her when she’s with Lucy. She is dreadfully jealous. And this recently acquired coquetry in a girl of her disposition—! She sighs, sulks, blushes, turns pale, laughs, cries——
Duchess. April showers! She’s just coming into bloom. She’s bored, poor child!
Mme. de Céran. Here?
Duchess. Here? Do you think it’s amusing here? Do you suppose that if I were eighteen, I should be here, among all your old ladies and your old gentlemen? I should say not! I’d associate with young people all the time; the younger the better, the handsomer the better, the more admirers I had the better! There are only two things that women never grow weary of: loving and being loved! And the older I grow the more I realize that there is no other happiness in the world!