do not fright me, nor am I the miserable woman and egoist you painted erewhile.
Don Lorenzo. Ángela, my dear wife, forgive me.
Doña Ángela. Do you want my forgiveness? Do you want me to continue blessing the hour I became your wife, as I have always blessed it till to-day?
Don Lorenzo. Yes.
Doña Ángela. Then do your duty as a man of honour, but in silence, prudently, without ostentation, or noise, or scandal.
Don Lorenzo. Why? The duchess would never consent to her son's marriage with Inés even at that price.
Doña Ángela. Edward answers for his mother's consent.
Don Lorenzo. She will never give in.
Doña Ángela. She will. She is a woman and a mother. We have not all attained such perfection as yours.
Don Lorenzo. I do not believe it.
Doña Ángela. Is it that you do not believe it, or that you fear it?
Don Lorenzo. But supposing she should consent,—how can I retain a name that is not mine?
Doña Ángela. What shabby subtleties to sacrifice my Inés to!
Don Lorenzo. A name, Ángela, in social life is
Doña Ángela. A name is but a sound, a passing breath of air, something vain and evanescent. But a child, Lorenzo, is a creature made of our own flesh and of the blood in our veins: a creature that, while still nothing, we shelter warm in our bosom, and receive into our arms upon its first cry; that gives us its first smile and its first kiss; that lives by our life, and is at once our
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