COURTHEZON. Yes. I tell you it’s splendid. I’ve been downstairs to the printing office to see if there were any orders.
MME. DUPONT. Were there any?
COURTHEZON [looking through papers in his hand] Three hundred visiting cards, a price list, and an announcement.
MME. DUPONT [stopping her work] Death? Birth?
COURTHEZON. Neither. A marriage.
MME. DUPONT. Give it me. [Reads paper which Courthezon gives her] M. Jacquemin. M. Jacquemin! And who is this Mlle. Martha Violet whom he is marrying?
COURTHEZON. One of the Violets of the Rue du Pré.
MME. DUPONT. Oh, yes: of course. [To Courthezon, who makes as if to take back the paper] Leave it with me. I will send it down to you. I want to show it to Julie. So you are pleased with your invention?
COURTHEZON [sitting down] I am delighted with it. Delighted! I’ve been working at it twenty years! And now it’s finished. What do you think of that?
Enter Caroline. She is tall, stringy, not pretty, not attractive, but not absurd. She has a prayer-book in her hand.