Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/325

 wholly ignorant of the Prado Gallery? And I were to reply: Is it possible? And you: I intend going one of these days. So I go every day until, naturally, as I go every day and you one of these days, we meet casually, and that is the way that they met, casually.

. I knew it all the time! Did your friend tell you this?

. Can't you see them?—a dreamer in love with an innocent woman! They view the paintings together, their artistic susceptibilities are aroused… Art has always been a prime conductor of love currents.

. Flippancy is out of place. Tell me seriously what you know, everything that your friend has confided to you.

. I can tell you something a great deal more serious. María Antonia has committed an indiscretion. She has been foolish

. Great heaven!

. She has written a letter.

. Which you have read? Did that man trust it to you? The scoundrel! He is no better than the rest—an empty boaster, puffed up with vanity! Is this the ideal for whom my poor child has forgotten her duties as a wife? Tell me what was in that letter.

. I merely said that it was indiscreet. She dismisses him, she deprives him of all hope. Nevertheless, she entreats, and to entreat is to confess weakness; to confess weakness is to fear vanquishment.

. Does this fellow hope

. He permits himself a slight hope.

. I must see María Antonia at once, in the presence of her father and her husband. They must realize the danger clearly. María Antonia must be saved at any cost. She shall never have cause to hang her head