Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/115

 Princess of Suavia. Neither has found love to be what they thought. Now, how rectify this new mistake? One mistake may be forgiven, one rectification in life. A woman does not look nearly so foolish when she leaves her husband for a lover, as she does afterward when she leaves her lover, even if she goes back to her husband. The only justification for certain mistakes is persevering in them.

. Not another lover! Do you mean it? Oh, that would be horrible!

. But how natural! Why should Helena resign herself to a second mistake, when she refused to resign herself to the first?

. It is not a contingency that I care to contemplate. What will they think in Suavia? Hush! Her Highness may hear…

. I do not believe that our ideas are very different, although the subject has not been discussed between us. Our sentimental history has been very much the same.

. Have you also made a mistake?

. I don't know. My attitude is similar to yours, Baroness, when you close your eyes to what strikes you in the face:—I don't want to know. I am unwilling to believe it, so I do not think of it; I am unwilling to believe it.

. My… my nerves have been on edge for the past half-hour! I cannot control myself any longer… I must let go somehow. Oh, oh!

. What is the matter? What has happened to Mme. Wilf? What is the trouble?

. Nothing, nothing! Don't touch her! The effect of the music.

. Mother, mother!… Of course! She is always taken like this after hearing father's music.