Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/247

. No, I prefer to have you talk—talk all the time, only be direct about it; don't insinuate. I know why you don't like that girl: it is because you think I am fond of her; you think that I am in love with all women.

. Not all women.

. No doubt you would be happier if I possessed the manners of a boor. Laura is the only woman you are willing to receive in the house; in your eyes, apparently, she is perfectly safe.

. You will never fall in love with Laura. She is too fond of you.

. I seem to have heard that story before.

. It is truer than most of your stories.

. Yes, my stories! Don Juan Tenorio! No woman is safe in my hands. Don't you see that your jealousy only makes us both ridiculous? We are not children; I was not a child when I married you—I was a widower when I was a mere boy; I have a married daughter. Nobody imagines that I was looking for a nurse when I proposed to you, like most widowers who have children. If my heart had been so fickle and flighty, why should I have married again? What good would it have done me?

. None; except that you had set your heart on it.

. On what?

. There was no other way with me.

. You could have refused me if that was your opinion of me; you had another way.

. I thought that you loved me.

. Loved you? Don't I love you?

. Yes, you do. It is very easy to love me.

. Why are you so fascinated with the rôle of martyr? Do you think it becoming?

. I don't know; it is very trying. The hardest