Faust enters with Méphistophélès, but bids the latter withdraw, as if he sensed the incongruity of his presence near the home of a maiden so pure as Marguerite. The tempter having gone, Faust proceeds to apostrophize Marguerite's dwelling in the exquisite romance, "Salut! demeure chaste et pure."
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Méphistophélès returns. With him he brings a casket of jewels and a handsome bouquet. With these he replaces Siebel's flowers. The two men then withdraw into a shadowy recess of the garden to await Marguerite's return.
She enters by the wicket. Her thoughts are with the handsome stranger—above her in station, therefore the more flattering and fascinating in her eyes—who addressed her at the kermis. Pensively she seats herself at her spinning-wheel and, while turning it, without much concentration of mind on her work, sings "Le Roi de Thulé," the ballad of the King of Thule, her thoughts, however, returning to Faust before she resumes and finishes the number, which is set in the simple fashion of a folk-song.
Approaching the house, and about to enter, she sees the flowers, stops to admire them, and to bestow a thought of compassion upon Siebel for his unrequited devotion, then sees and hesitatingly opens the casket of jewels. Their appeal to her feminine vanity is too great to permit her to return them at once to the casket. Decking herself out in them, she regards herself and the sparkling gems in the handglass that came with them, then bursts into the brilliant "Air des Bijoux" (Jewel Song):
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