CAROLINA. I asked them to look for you everywhere. Pardon the inconvenience, but the emergency was extreme. I am in a terrible position; all the tact in the world can never extricate me from one of those embarrassing predicaments--unless you assist me by your advice. ZURITA. Count upon my advice; count upon me in anything. However, I cannot believe that you are really in an embarrassing predicament. CAROLINA. But I am, my friend; and you are the only one who can advise me. You are a person of taste; your articles and society column are the standard of good form with us. Everybody accepts and respects your decisions. ZURITA. Not invariably, I am sorry to say--especially now that I have taken up the suppression of the hips, which are fatal to the success of any _toilette_. Society was formerly very select in this city, but it is no longer the same, as you no doubt have occasion to know. Too many fortunes have been improvised, too many aristocratic families have descended in the scale. There has been a great change in society. The _parvenus_ dominate--and money is so insolent! People who have it imagine that other things can be improvised--as education, for example, manners, good taste. Surely you must realize that such things cannot be improvised. Distinction is a hothouse plant. We grow too few gardenias nowadays--like you, my friend. On the other hand, we have an abundance of sow-thistles. Not that I am referring to the Nuñez family.... How do you suppose those ladies enliven their Wednesday evenings? With a gramophone, my friend, with a gramophone--just like any vulgar café; although I must confess that it is an improvement upon the days when the youngest sang, the middle one recited, and all played together. Nevertheless it is horrible. You can imagine my distress. CAROLINA. You know, of course, that I never take part in their Wednesdays. I never call unless I am sure they are not at home. ZURITA. But that is no longer a protection; they leave the gramophone. And the maid invites you to wait and entertain yourself with the _Mochuelo_. What is a man to do? It is impossible to resent the records upon the maid. But we are wandering from the subject. You excite my curiosity. CAROLINA. You know that to-morrow is the day of the unveiling of the statue of my husband, of my previous husband-- ZURITA. A fitting honor to the memory of that great, that illustrious man. This province owes him much, and so does all Spain. We who enjoyed the privilege of calling ourselves his friends, should be delighted to see justice done to his deserts at last, here where political jealousies and intrigues have always belittled the achievements of our eminent men. But Don Patricio Molinete could have no enemies. To-morrow will atone for much of the pettiness of the past.