Minard (coming forward)
Ah, sir!
Mercadet
Well, M. Minard, and what brings you here?
Minard
Despair.
Mercadet
Despair?
Minard
M. Godeau has come back; and they say that you are now a millionaire!
Mercadet
Is that the cause of your despair?
Minard
Yes, sir.
Mercadet Well, you are a strange fellow! I disclose to you the fact of my ruin and you are delighted. You learn that good fortune has returned to me and you are overwhelmed with despair! And all the while you wish to enter into my family! Yet you act like my enemy—
Minard It is just my love that makes your good fortune so alarming to me; I fear all the while that you will now refuse me the hand—
Mercadet Of Julie? My dear Adolphe, all men of business have not put their heart in their money-bags. Our sentiments are not always to be reckoned by debit and credit. You offered me the thirty thousand francs that you possessed—I certainly have no right to reject you on account of certain millions. (Aside) Which I do not possess!