FLORENCIO. Very well then, my dear. I understand how you feel. This is a time when everybody is dwelling on his virtues, his good qualities, but I want you to remember that that great man had also his faults. CAROLINA. You don't know what you are talking about. FLORENCIO. Compare me with him-- CAROLINA. Florencio? You know that in my mind there has never been any comparison. Comparisons are odious. FLORENCIO. Not necessarily. But of course you have not! You have never regretted giving up his distinguished name, have you, Carolina, for this humble one of mine? Only I want you to understand that if I had desired to shine, if I had been ambitious.... I have talent myself. Now admit it! CAROLINA. Of course I do, my dear, of course! But what is the use of talking nonsense? FLORENCIO. What is the matter with you, anyway? You are nervous to-day. It is impossible to conduct a sensible conversation.--Hello! Your sisters-in-law! I am not at home. CAROLINA. Don't excite yourself. They never ask for you. FLORENCIO. I am delighted!... Well, I wish you a short session and escape. CAROLINA. I am in a fine humor for this sort of thing myself. [_Florencio goes out. Eudosia and Paquita enter._] EUDOSIA. I trust that we do not intrude? CAROLINA. How can you ask? Come right in. EUDOSIA. It seems we find you at home for once. CAROLINA. So it seems. PAQUITA. Strange to say, whenever we call you always appear to be out. CAROLINA. A coincidence. EUDOSIA. The coincidence is to find you at home. [_A pause._] We passed your husband on the street. CAROLINA. Are you sure that you would recognize him? PAQUITA. Oh! he was not alone. CAROLINA. Is that so? EUDOSIA. Paquita saw him with Somolino's wife, at Sanchez the confectioner's. CAROLINA. Very possibly. PAQUITA. I should not make light of it, if I were you. You know what Somolino's wife is, to say nothing of Sanchez the confectioner. CAROLINA. I didn't know about the confectioner. EUDOSIA. No respectable woman, no woman who even pretends to be respectable, would set foot in his shop since he married that French girl. CAROLINA. I didn't know about the French girl. EUDOSIA. Yes, he married her--I say married her to avoid using another term. He married her in Bayonne--if you call such a thing marriage--civilly, which is the way French people marry. It is a land of perdition. CAROLINA. I am very sorry to hear it because I am awfully fond of sweetmeats. I adore _bonbons_ and _marrons glacés_, and nobody here has as good ones as Sanchez, nor anywhere else for that matter. PAQUITA. In that case you had as well deny yourself, unless you are prepared to invite criticism. Somolino's wife is the only woman who enters the shop and faces the French girl, who gave her a receipt for dyeing her hair on the spot. You must have noticed how she is doing it now. CAROLINA. I hadn't noticed.