Anne [to herself, weeping]. Ah, poor Louis!
Valsin [cheerfully]. You are beginning to comprehend? That is well. Your niece's door is still ajar by the discreet width of a finger, so I assume that the Emigrant also begins to comprehend. Therefore I take my ease! [He seats himself in the most comfortable chair in the room, crossing his legs in a leisurely attitude, and lightly drumming the tips of his fingers together, the while his peaceful gaze is fixed upon the ceiling. His tone, as he continues, is casual.] You understand, my Dossonville, having long ago occupied this very apartment myself, I am serenely aware that the Emigrant can leave the other room only by the window; and as this is the fourth floor, and a proper number of bayonets in the courtyard below are arranged to receive any person active enough to descend by a rope of bed-clothes, one is confident that the said Emigrant will remain where he is. Let us make ourselves comfortable, for it is a delightful hour—an hour I have long promised myself. I am in a good humor. Let us all be happy. Citizeness Laseyne, enjoy yourself. Call me some bad names!
Anne [between her teeth]. If I could find one evil enough!
Valsin [slapping his knee delightedly]. There it is: the complete incompetence of your class. You poor aristocrats, you do not even know how to swear. Your ancestors knew how! They were fighters; they knew how to swear because they knew how to attack; you poor moderns have no profanity left in you, because, poisoned by idleness, you have forgotten even how to resist. And yet you thought yourselves on top, and so you were—but as foam is on top of the wave. You forgot that power, like genius, always comes from underneath, because it is produced only by turmoil. We have had to wring the neck of your feather-head court, because while the court was the nation the nation had its pockets picked. You were at the mercy of anybody with a pinch of brains: adventurers like Mazarin, like Fouquet, like Law, or that little commoner, the woman Fish, who called herself Pompadour and took France—France, merely!—from your King, and used it to her own pleasure. Then, at last, after the swindlers had well plucked you—at last, unfortunate creatures, the People got you! Citizeness, the People had starved: be assured they will eat you to the bone—and then eat the bone! You are helpless because you have learned nothing and forgotten everything. You have forgotten everything in this world except how to be fat!
Dossonville [applauding with unction]. Beautiful! It is beautiful, all that! A beautiful speech!
Valsin. Ass!
Dossonville [meekly]. Perfectly, perfectly.
Valsin [crossly]. That wasn't a speech; it was the truth. Citizeness Laseyne, so far as you are concerned, I am the People. [He extends his hand negligently, with open palm.] And I have got you. [He clenches his fingers, like a cook's on the neck of a fowl.] Like that! And I'm going to take you back to Paris, you and the Emigrant. [She stands in an attitude eloquent of despair. His glance roves from her to the door of the other room, which is still slightly ajar; and, smiling at some fugitive thought, he continues, deliberately.] I take you: you and your brother—and that rather pretty little person who traveled with you. [There is a breathless exclamation from the other side of the door, which is flung open violently, as Eloise—flushed, radiant with anger, and altogether magnificent—sweeps into the room to confront Valsin.]
Eloise [slamming the door behind her]. Leave this Jack-in-Office to me, Anne!
Dossonville [dazed by the vision]. Lord! What glory! [He rises, bowing profoundly, muttering hoarsely.] Oh, eyes! Oh, hair! Look at her shape! Her chin! The divine—