SCENE II

_Edward and the Duchess, who enters R._

EDWARD. How is Inés, mother? Has she regained consciousness?

DUCHESS. She has now, thank God. Poor child! I could not go until I was assured it was all right, and that she was better. And you, my son?

EDWARD. I must see her.

DUCHESS. Edward!

EDWARD. Then we have to talk to Don Lorenzo, and afterwards——

DUCHESS. Afterwards you will get to the end of my patience. I have done all for you that honour, dignity, and social convention permit—even more. But the moment has come for you to show yourself a man, to remember who you are and listen to the voice of duty.

EDWARD. Rightly said, mother, that is what I am prepared to do, but it remains to be seen if we entertain the same idea of duty.

DUCHESS. You must give Inés up.

EDWARD. Why? Because of her poverty?

DUCHESS. By no means.

EDWARD. Then why, mother? Because Don Lorenzo wishes to perform a sublime action which, if he carries out the prospect, will immortalise him in tale and history, and, who knows, may even lift him aloft into the Calendar?

DUCHESS. I see you appreciate the humour of the situation, and that is no bad sign.

EDWARD. I want to show you how perfectly cool I am. As for Don Lorenzo, we must regard the affair as a joke, or put him into an asylum.

DUCHESS. Don't say such things, Edward. It offends me to hear you speak so. There may be some slight exaggeration, perhaps no inconsiderable precipitation, and a certain air of melodramatic display in Don Lorenzo's project, but we cannot deny that he is acting like a gentleman.

EDWARD. Why does he revel in his daughter's misfortune?

DUCHESS. Because he is accomplishing his duty without respect of human passions.

EDWARD. Then if Don Lorenzo is so honourable, and the lustre of noble actions is a heritage, Inés will be something more than the angel of my life—she will bring me a wealth of hereditary virtue.

DUCHESS. She will also bring more than her share of hereditary dishonour. [_In low voice approaching him._] The girl has no name good or bad, since nobody knows what her father's is, and that of her grandmother has been inscribed as a thief's upon the infamous register of a prison.

EDWARD. Hush!

DUCHESS. If we are to believe Don Lorenzo, that unhappy girl's fate is to be a humble nurse's grandchild, and her father's accomplice in living under a false name. It would perhaps be an excess of aristocratic pride to reject such an honourable alliance, but to such a decision am I led by what you, with your modern education, will doubtless qualify as old-fashioned prejudices.

EDWARD. Well, mother, I love Inés.

DUCHESS. You are mad, boy.

EDWARD. That were not strange, since love is said to be a madness.

DUCHESS. You almost make me lose my judgment.

EDWARD. Would you prefer to lose me?

DUCHESS. Enough, Edward. We must leave this house which, in an evil moment, I entered to-day for the first time.

EDWARD. But say—is not Inés sweet?

DUCHESS. Assuredly—as an angel of God's heaven, when I first beheld her, and now she looks like the angel of sorrow.

EDWARD. Does not the whole world regard Don Lorenzo as an accomplished scholar, and have you yourself not said that he is a saint?

DUCHESS. It would be injustice to deny the value of a reputation so illustrious as his, or the keenness of his sense of honour.

EDWARD. Then there is no objection to him.

DUCHESS. Certainly not.

EDWARD. [_Approaches the duchess and speaks in a low voice._] Can't we find some means of averting scandal? Who knows anything of this wretched story, true or false, though to me it seems more likely false? Only ourselves, and we will hold our tongue. Dr. Tomás is almost one of the family. Death will shortly seal the lips of that unhappy woman. And, after all, Don Lorenzo is a father; he will do for Inés' sake that which you refuse to do for mine. Why, mother dear, need we go in search of misery and death when felicity is within our reach?

DUCHESS. Ah, see how contact with crime perverts the noblest minds! Unfortunate boy, do you not understand that you are proposing a monstrous thing to me? that you wish me to be an accomplice to a felony? Good heavens, what has come over you that you should think and speak such things?

EDWARD. Who on earth speaks of anything monstrous or proposes felony? Have we all gone mad with Don Lorenzo, or are you martyrising me for your own entertainment?

DUCHESS. You suggested our averting scandal by silence.

EDWARD. Yes.

DUCHESS. Then——

EDWARD. Listen, mother. This is what I meant to say. If Don Lorenzo's tale be true, which is what I doubt, the legitimate heirs of this confounded wealth may be discovered cautiously, in secret, and a way can be found to restore it to them.

DUCHESS. But on what pretext?

EDWARD. If you had to beg for a fortune, it might be difficult to find one, but when it comes to giving, don't be afraid. It is easy enough, and any pretext is equally welcome to those who receive it.

DUCHESS. Inés will still bear a name she has no title to.

EDWARD. She will bear mine, which is worth all others.

DUCHESS. That is true. But Don Lorenzo——

EDWARD. Leave him alone. He has enough to do with his philosophy. We have ourselves to think of, and I believe that it can be all managed if you will consent. With a word you can give Inés back life, and give a new life to me in exchange for that which your unkindness blighted, and which I first owed to your affection. Restore happiness to this unhappy family, and bestow their usurped fortune upon the rightful heirs without noise or vain display. This is no felony, and it is not a monstrous thing to do.

DUCHESS. You magnetise me, Edward. I scarce know what to say. But an inward voice warns me that what you suggest is neither right nor just,—that deception can never be preferable to truth, and despite Don Lorenzo's ravings, I feel that duty triumphs in him, while in you it is passion that triumphs, for all your arguments.

EDWARD. How so? Tell me.

DUCHESS. I cannot discuss it with you, Edward.

EDWARD. What you cannot do is love me as you ought.

DUCHESS. Not love you; cruel boy! You have wounded me to the heart, though I know that you do not believe what you say.

EDWARD. Then yield to me.

DUCHESS. Don't press me, Edward.

EDWARD. You are yielding—I see it. Your face is pale, there are tears in your eyes, and your lips tremble. [_Caressingly._] Confession of consent hangs upon them—yes, why not? What is there absolutely opposed to that high ideal of honour you and Don Lorenzo worship? What wrong is there in my plan?

DUCHESS. There is wrong, Edward.

EDWARD. So little, an atom, a shadow, a mere scruple. And don't I deserve you should commit so trivial an error for me? Go among the people whom you treat with such contempt, and from whom the aristocrat's pride separates you by an abyss; seek out a mother, and ask her if, for her son's sake, she would not stifle upon a cry of love all these refinements of conscience.

DUCHESS. [_Passionately._] I am capable of making any sacrifice a mother can make.

EDWARD. [_Embracing her._] Thanks, mother, thanks.

DUCHESS. But——

EDWARD. You have promised, you have promised. [_Without heeding her._] And, after all, it may not even be necessary. What assurance have we that Don Lorenzo's tale is true? What tangible proofs are there? None that we know of. The word of a dying woman in delirium? Is that enough?

DUCHESS. Truly not.

EDWARD. Yet we have not even that much; for Dr. Tomás has not been able to interrogate Juana. How do we know that she told it to Don Lorenzo, or if he only dreamed it? Let me assure you, Don Lorenzo's head is no sound one.

DUCHESS. It is not, indeed.

EDWARD. What an odd and extravagant fellow he is!

DUCHESS. For my part, I really thought he had gone mad.

EDWARD. Depend upon it, he is not far off. All these men of learning end that way. Both Dr. Tomás and Ángela admit that he doesn't reason like other men.