Page:The great Galeoto; Folly or saintliness; two plays done from the verse of José Echegaray into English prose by Hannah Lynch (IA greatgaleotofoll00echerich).djvu/185

 do not fright me, nor am I the miserable woman and egoist you painted erewhile.

. Ángela, my dear wife, forgive me.

. Do you want my forgiveness? Do you want me to continue blessing the hour I became your wife, as I have always blessed it till to-day?

. Yes.

. Then do your duty as a man of honour, but in silence, prudently, without ostentation, or noise, or scandal.

. Why? The duchess would never consent to her son's marriage with Inés even at that price.

. Edward answers for his mother's consent.

. She will never give in.

. She will. She is a woman and a mother. We have not all attained such perfection as yours.

. I do not believe it.

. Is it that you do not believe it, or that you fear it?

. But supposing she should consent,—how can I retain a name that is not mine?

. What shabby subtleties to sacrifice my Inés to!

. A name, Ángela, in social life is

. A name is but a sound, a passing breath of air, something vain and evanescent. But a child, Lorenzo, is a creature made of our own flesh and of the blood in our veins: a creature that, while still nothing, we shelter warm in our bosom, and receive into our arms upon its first cry; that gives us its first smile and its first kiss; that lives by our life, and is at once our 145