- Duc de Praslin: Why are you smiling? May I share whatever pleases you so?
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: You will think I am very silly, I'm afraid, but standing here like this with the snow falling reminds of something I used to know. Do you remember a little round glass globe that...
- Duc de Praslin: Oh yes, I know, with a snow scene inside. We had a paperweight on a desk at home like that. You shook it and the snow whirled around out from nowhere in a blinding storm.
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: Yes, that's exactly what I mean.
- Duc de Praslin: And if you looked closely enough the whole world seemed to be obliberated and shut out.
- Duc de Praslin: Oh, please don't go. Don't even move.
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: Why?
- Duc de Praslin: I might say don't move because, as you sit there, the firelight is so beautiful on your hair. I might say don't move because this is All Souls' Day, and you mustn't disturb the spirits. And again, I might say don't move because this is a moment so full of understanding that I can't bear to see it come to an end.
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: Happiness isn't a little cake which we can cut up to fill our appetites.
- Duc de Praslin: Will it be any comfort to you to know that when your gone my only happiness will be in knowing I'm sharing your loneliness?
- Duchesse de Praslin: Mademoiselle Deluzy, just a moment.
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: But, Madame, I'm supposed to... Monsieur's downstairs...
- Duchesse de Praslin: Monsieur's downstairs, yes. I am here to make sure that you understand, this time you've gone too far, Mademoiselle. You are to leave this house into which you've brought evil and sin!
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: Yes, Madame, there is evil in this house, but it was here before I came. 'Twas not I who brought it.
- Duchesse de Praslin: What intrigue there is beneath that mask of innocence! It was not enough for you to be a governess! No, you had to conspire to become the mistress of my household! To steal from me everything that was mine, including the affections of my children!
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: Affections can not be stolen, Madame, they are given freely or not at all. If you'd ever been a mother to your children, if you'd earned their love instead of driving them away, nothing I could've done would ever make them turn away from you to...
- Duchesse de Praslin: You've used them shamelessly to attract him! To separate him from me!
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: Is it possible you've finally deceived yourself into believing...
- Duchesse de Praslin: Have you not one shred of decency? How dare he entice you to come here to confess that you and he... to admit openly without delicacy that you...
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: Why do you stop? I challenge you to accuse me of what you know is not true!
- Duchesse de Praslin: I am not here to challenge you in a matter that is personable between myself and Monsieur le Duc! I am here to dismiss an unsatisfactory servant!
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: I can't help but feel this time you'll pay very dearly.
- Duc de Praslin: I always pay. Sometimes I pay most for what I never had. It is not unfair that for a few days I've had what I can never pay for.
- Duchesse de Praslin: Don't leave me, Theo!
- Duc de Praslin: I'm late in Paris.
- Duchesse de Praslin: But... I must talk to you! I never see you!
- Duc de Praslin: The king expects me.
- Duchesse de Praslin: [She grabs for his hands and he pulls it away] Does even the touch of my hands feel you with aversion?
- Duc de Praslin: Oh, really, Francoise...
- Duchesse de Praslin: It must be aversion you feel, since you always avoid me, never giving me a moment's thought or attention!
- Duc de Praslin: I have no wish to avoid you Francoise. I would talk to you by the hour if we could do so with calmness and sanity, but it always ends the same.
- [He begins walking out]
- Duchesse de Praslin: Wait! Theo! Wait! Oh, how cruel you are, my darling! Take the children! Take them! I care nothing about them, about anyone but you! Theo! If I promise never again to torment you with my anger, with my unreasoning mistrust... Theo!
- Duc de Praslin: You don't know what you're saying.
- Duchesse de Praslin: Theo! Theo! Come back! Theo I beg you! Oh, Theo come back!
- [She sees he is already gone and becomes hysterical]
- Duchesse de Praslin: I hate you! I loathe you! You're wicked! Wicked! Wicked!
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: In your unhappiness you reached out your hand for help and in my loneliness I took it.
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: You may not have learned much French today, but I think you have learned a little patience and tolerance and that is the same in every language.
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: If love is right, it is the most precious gift in the world. But you must be sure - very sure - that it is right, for if it isn't, there is no worse agony, nothing more bitter, nothing more lonely to be imagined.
- Pierre: There on the left, the lights in her rooms are burning, and there on the right, the lights in his room are burning and between them is that long passage where the lights never burn. Suppose some night you saw that passage lighted? Would you share your feeling then with all the world?
- Henriette Deluzy-Desportes: You'd better go now, Pierre.
- Pierre: I'll go. I'll go, because I see it's too late to give you any warning. You're caught in the net and you don't even wish to escape. Good night, Mademoiselle.
- Duc de Praslin: May I have Pierre come for your luggage?
- Duchesse de Praslin: Theo, last night I poured my heart out to you in a letter. I crept to your doorway which I am foridden to enter and stooped in humility and pushed it under the seal!
- Duc de Praslin: I received it, Francoise.
- Duchesse de Praslin: But look! You didn't even open it! Oh Theo, do you suppose this empty pretense is what I hoped for? Last night I begged for you to come to me! I hoped we might start this journey today united as we once were! Theo, Theo! Have you completely forgotten the life we once shared together?
- Duc de Praslin: If you're unhappy, Francoise, I am truly sorry, but I swear I never intended you a minute's pain.
- Duchesse de Praslin: Oh no! You only say that! In reality you delight in torturing me! As one day, heaven willing, I will torture you!