gain? while I can do nothing to alter the injustice of it. You see it, too? And if the ignoble talk of the town should compel those two to treason, though they may now truthfully assert: 'we are not lovers,' the force of repetition of the word may eventually drive them to the fact.
D. Severo. If that's how you feel about it, Julian, I think the safest thing would be to let Ernest carry out his project.
D. Julian. That I've come to prevent.
D. Severo. Then you are insane. He purposes to go to Buenos Ayres. Nothing could be better. Let him go—in a sailing vessel, fresh wind to his sail, and good speed.
D. Julian. Do you wish me to show myself so miserably ungrateful and jealous before Teodora? Don't you know, Severo, that a woman may despise a lover and love him still, but not so a husband? Contempt is his dishonour. You would not have my wife follow the unhappy exile across the ocean with sad regrets? And I, should I see the trace of a tear upon her cheek, the mere thought that it might be for Ernest would drive me to strangle her in my arms. [Speaks with rancour and rage.]
D. Severo. What is it then you do want?
D. Julian. I must suffer. The care of unravelling the knot belongs to the world that conceived the drama solely by looking at us,—so fertile is its glance for good and ill.
D. Severo. [Moving back.] I think somebody is coming.
Servant. [From without, not seen on the stage.] Don Ernest cannot be much later. [Enter Pepito.]
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