Carmen. Unpleasant? No, it was only what I expected; I knew it all the time. That girl has been laughing at your brother, she has been playing with him. And to think that my poor boy was blind! He was so infatuated that he could not see.
Luisa. But what did Doña Teresa say?
Carmen. She said enough to let me understand that her daughter has been toying with your brother, and she has encouraged her. She will not give up her child, who for her part is done with him, because she refuses to trust to chance, to reckless adventure—the recklessness of marrying a poor man, that is the recklessness they are afraid of. He may be poor, but he has never courted a rich wife, as other young men have done, without his advantages or his figure or his ability, yes, or his education. Now that girl will plume herself upon having turned him off, so as to foist herself upon some protégé of her uncle's, somebody who was not good enough for her cousins, and so they pass him along to her, like their old hats and their old clothes, which she then proceeds to show off in, like the common creature that she is.
Luisa. Mamma! Mamma! I never heard you talk like this. Don't be so angry. Does Julio know?
Carmen. No, they are afraid to tell him; they want me to do it. They are so pleased that they imagine that it will be a great joy to me. And it is—it is! It is a tremendous relief. Now your brother will find out whether his mother was right or not, whether it was only a mother's selfishness, as he always said, because that boy would insist that it was nothing but selfishness when I opposed that engagement. A mother's heart cannot be deceived. It is a tremendous satisfaction to me, yes, it is; but all the same I am bitter, I am bitter because they have played with my boy, and his
