Ernest. Teodora!
Teodora. Affronts us.
Ernest. I expressed myself ill—but it is so.
D. Julian. I say it is not so. If any one in this house lives upon alms, and those no slight ones, it is I and not you.
Ernest. I am acquainted, sir, with the story of two loyal friends, and of some money matters long forgotten. It does honour to my father and to his hidalgic race. But I am shamed in profiting by it. I am young, Don Julian, and although I may not be worth much, there ought still to be some way for me to earn my bread. It may be pride or folly, I cannot say. But I remember what my father used to say: 'What you can do yourself, never ask another to do. What you can earn, never owe to any one else.'
D. Julian. So that my services humiliate and degrade you. You count your friends importunate creditors.
Teodora. Reason may be on your side, Ernest, and in knowledge you are not deficient, but, believe me, in this case the heart alone speaks with wisdom.
D. Julian. Your father did not find me so ungenerous or so proud.
Teodora. Ah, friendship was then a very different thing.
Ernest. Teodora!
Teodora. [To Don Julian.] What a noble anxiety he displays!
Ernest. I know I seem ungrateful—I feel it—and an idiot to boot. Forgive me, Don Julian.
D. Julian. His head is a forge.
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