Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/252

 styles, or a circular letter from the President of the Council, presenting his compliments and soliciting your vote. They are precisely as innocent.

. I must give you credit for ingenuity, which, on the whole, is extremely flattering. When I feel older, mentally and physically, every day, to find that at my age you still consider me fascinating—it is delightful!

. No, fascinated, which is not the same. Your vanity is your undoing, as it is with all men. So why be vain? You are spoiled from the cradle. Parents, relatives and friends, down to the last gossiping old crone who is attached to the house, all flatter you: "What a cunning little dear!" "And how manly!" So the poor boy is lured on. I was always sent out of the room when I was a girl, when they began to talk about you.

. You hid behind the door and listened to every word.

. I was so inexpressibly shocked that I hated all men because I thought they were like you.

. All men but me, apparently. I made love to you before we were married.

. And I boxed your ears.

. You did, and it was tremendous! I never forgot you. And I don't believe that you ever forgot me, either. I was your sweetheart from that hour.

. I was as great a fool as you say.

. It is not easy to forget me.

. Oh, how I wish you were bald and gray-haired, with crows'-feet about your eyes, and a paunch to make you respectable! I pray God for one every day—I give you warning. But nothing happens. Apparently, you are the devil's, and at forty

. Come, come! Stop at forty!