LUCIE. Before speaking to me about it?
ANNETTE [confused] Don’t, please, ask me any more questions.
LUCIE. Annette, I must scold you a little. You’ve hurt me very much by keeping me in the dark about all this. Nothing would have made me believe that you’d do such a thing. I thought you were too fond of me not to tell me at once about anybody—any man—you were interested in. I find I was mistaken. We see one another every day, we are never parted, and yet you have managed to conceal from me the one thing your heart was full of. You ought to have told me. Not because I am your elder sister, but because I take mother’s place towards you. And for a better reason still—because I am your friend. It’s been a kind of treason. A little more, and I should have heard that you were engaged from strangers and not from you. Well, my dear, you’ve been wrong: these people are not worth crying about. Now be brave and remember your self-respect: I am going to tell you the whole truth. They don’t want you, my poor little girl: you are not rich enough for them.
ANNETTE [staring blindly at her sister] They don’t want me! They don’t want me! But Jacques! Jacques! Does he know?
LUCIE. Yes, he knows.
ANNETTE. He means to give me up if they tell him to?
LUCIE. Yes.
ANNETTE [beside herself] I must see him. I will write to him. I must see him. If they don’t want me there is nothing left but to kill myself.
LUCIE [obliging Annette to look her in the face] Annette, look at me. [Silence. Then tenderly and gravely] I think you have something to tell me.
ANNETTE [tearing herself away] Don’t ask me—don’t [very low] or I shall die of shame.