Quinola (aside) Just like the women! (Aloud) Listen, senora, I wish that by some honest means we could bury this doll in the depths of the--that is--of a convent. Faustine You seem to me to be a fine fellow. Quinola I love my master. Faustine Do you think that he has noticed me? Quinola Not yet. Faustine Speak to him of me. Quinola But then, he would speak to me by breaking a stick across my back. You see, senora, that girl-- Faustine That girl ought to be forever lost to him. Quinola But he would die, senora. Faustine He must be very much in love with her. Quinola Ah! that is not my fault! All the way here from Valladolid I have a thousand times argued the point, that a man like he ought to adore women, but never to love an individual woman! Never-- Faustine You are a pretty worthless rascal! Go and tell Lothundiaz to come and speak with me and to bring his daughter with him. (Aside) She shall be put in a convent. Quinola (aside) She is the enemy. She loves me so much that she can't help doing us a great deal of harm. (Exit.) SCENE EIGHTH Faustine and Fregose. Fregose While you expect the master, you spend your time in corrupting the servant. Faustine Can a woman ever lose her habit of seduction? Fregose Senora, you are ungenerous; I should think that a patrician lady of Venice would know how to spare the feelings of an old soldier. Faustine Come, my lord, you presume more upon your white hair than a young man would presume upon his fairest locks, and you find in them a stronger argument than in--(She laughs). Let me have no more of this petulance. Fregose How can I be otherwise than vexed when you compromise yourself thus, you, whom I wish to be my wife? Is it nothing to have a chance of bearing one of the noblest of names? Faustine Do you think it is too noble for a Brancadori? Fregose Yet, you would prefer stooping to a Fontanares! Faustine But what if he could raise himself as high as to a Brancadori? That would be a proof of love indeed! Besides, as you know from your own experience, love never reasons. Fregose Ah! You acknowledge that! Faustine Your friendship to me is so great that you have been the first to learn my secret. Fregose Senora! Yes, love is madness! I have surrendered to you more than myself! Alas, I wish I had the world to offer you. You evidently are not aware that your picture gallery alone cost me almost all my fortune. Faustine Paquita! Fregose And that I would surrender to you even my honor. SCENE NINTH The same persons and Paquita. Faustine (to Paquita) Tell my steward that the pictures of my gallery must immediately be carried to the house of Don Fregose. Fregose Paquita, do not deliver that order.