usurped wealth and a name I have no right to, and all that is not ours! God has not willed it so, and what he has not willed should not be. Inés, you and I, all sunk in the mire! Is this what you would counsel? [With increasing excitement.] Then virtue is but a lie, and you all, whom I have most loved in this world, perceiving what I regarded as divinity in you, are only miserable egoists, incapable of sacrifice, a prey to greed and the mere playthings of passion. Then you are all but clay, and nothing more. And if you are but clay, resolve yourselves to dust, and let the wind of the tempest carry all off. [Violently.]
Doña Ángela. Lorenzo!
Don Lorenzo. Beings shaped without conscience or free will are simply atoms that meet to-day and separate to-morrow. Such is matter—then let it go.
Doña Ángela. You are wandering, Lorenzo. I don't understand you. I don't know what it is you want.
Don Lorenzo. To respect truth and justice.
Doña Ángela. Truth!
Don Lorenzo. Yes.
Doña Ángela. And cry it to the world from the housetops.
Don Lorenzo. I will announce it.
Doña Ángela. And leave us in poverty.
Don Lorenzo. I will earn your bread and my own by my work.
Doña Ángela. You earn your bread! Scholar's vanity! Well, be it so, but listen to me first If it should be that we really have no right to our wealth, give it up,—well and good. [Don Lorenzo bursts into a cry of delight and advances to her with outstretched arms.] Privations
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