Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/48

 precarious, as is mine, thanks to our beloved nephews and nieces, whose only thought, apparently, is to sweeten the final years of our reign, or to hasten its close. As if you were not bad enough, Helena focuses the attention of the entire civilized world upon us and our house.

. It is surely not my fault that my cousin has chosen this moment to agitate her divorce, not to speak of her elopement with her husband's secretary.

. But you are the one who began it. She would never have dared, if it had not been for you.

. I fail to see the similarity; my position is very different from that of my cousin.

. Perhaps, but two scandals in three months are too much in any family. In a ruling dynasty they are intolerable. This is a restless age, when every hand is raised against us. Monarchies do not exist to-day by virtue of divine right or inherited prerogative, but through personal prestige, through the respect and admiration which royalty inspires by its behavior. Making ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of those who no longer believe in us, and pathetic in the eyes of those who still do, is an ill augury for the future.

. I must decline to admit having fallen into either extreme, although I very well understand that my conduct may appear odious to courtiers and conservatives. But are you familiar with liberal opinion? Frankly, I do not believe that any intelligent person could laugh at me, or take exception to my marrying for love the woman I adore.

. Have you noticed that the liberal and revolutionary papers are the ones which have printed all the jokes at your expense, or rather, I should say, at ours? That shows their appreciation of your modernity, your liberalism, and how highly they value this love of yours, which in their eyes ought certainly to appear admirable.