Raoul
What is that?
The Duchesse de Montsorel
Remain the same mysterious personage you are at present.
The Marquis (rejoining them, newspaper in hand) Here is a strange thing, ladies; one of those foreigners who claim to be noblemen has been caught cheating at play at the field marshal's house.
Inez
Is that the great piece of news in which you have been absorbed?
Raoul
In these times, everyone seems to be a foreigner.
The Marquis It is not altogether the piece of news that set me thinking, but I was struck by the incredible readiness with which people receive at their houses those about whose antecedents they know positively nothing.
The Duchesse de Montsorel (aside)
Is he to be insulted in my house?
Raoul If people distrust those whom they do not know, aren't they sometimes likely, at very short notice, to know rather too much about them?
The Duke Albert, how can this news of yours interest us? Do we ever receive any one without first learning what his family is?
Raoul
His grace the duke knows my family.