SCENE I

_Teodora and Don Julian. Teodora near the balcony; Don Julian seated on the sofa, lost in thought._

TEODORA. What a lovely sunset! what clouds and light, and what a sky! Suppose it were true, as the poets say, and our fathers believed, that our fate is stamped upon the azure heaven! Were the mysterious secret of human destiny traced by the stars upon the sapphire sphere, and this splendid evening should hold the cipher of ours, what happiness it must disclose! what a smiling future! What a life in our life, and what radiance in our heaven! Is it not so, Julian? [_She approaches Don Julian._] Ah, plunged in thought, I see! Come and look out. What, no word for me?

D. JULIAN. [_Absently._] What is it?

TEODORA. [_Coming near._] You have not been listening to me!

D. JULIAN. You have my heart ever—who are its magnet and its centre. But my mind is apt to be besieged by preoccupations, cares, business——

TEODORA. They are the plague of my life, since they rob me, if not of my husband's affections, at least of some of his attention. But what is the matter, Julian? [_Affectionately._] Something worries you. Is it serious, that you are so solemn and so silent? If it should be trouble, Julian, remember that I have a right to share it. My joys are yours, and your sorrows are no less mine.

D. JULIAN. Sorrows! Troubles! Are you not happy? Do I not possess in you the living embodiment of joy? With those cheeks so ruddy in the glow of health, and those dear eyes, clear like your soul and resplendent as the sky, and I the owner of all you, could pain, or shadow, or grief teach me I am other than the happiest man alive?

TEODORA. It is a business annoyance, perhaps?

D. JULIAN. Money never yet forced sleep or appetite to forsake me. I have never felt aversion, much less contempt for it, so it follows that the article has flowed easily into my coffers. I was rich, I am rich; and until Don Julian of Garagarga dies of old age, please God and his own good fortune, he will remain, if not the wealthiest, certainly the surest, banker of Madrid, Cadiz, and Oporto.

TEODORA. Then what is your preoccupation?

D. JULIAN. I was thinking—'tis a good thought, too.

TEODORA. Naturally, since 'tis yours.

D. JULIAN. Flatterer! you would spoil me.

TEODORA. But I am still unenlightened.

D. JULIAN. There is an important matter I want to achieve.

TEODORA. Connected with the new works?

D. JULIAN. No; it has nothing to do with stone or iron.

TEODORA. What, then?

D. JULIAN. It is a question of kindness—a sacred debt of old date.

TEODORA. [_Gleefully._] Oh, I can guess now.

D. JULIAN. So!

TEODORA. You mean Ernest.

D. JULIAN. You are right.

TEODORA. Yes, yes, you must. Poor lad! he's so good and noble and generous.

D. JULIAN. Quite his father's son—the model of a loyal hidalgo.

TEODORA. And then so clever! Only twenty-six, and a prodigy! what doesn't he know?

D. JULIAN. Know! I should think he _did_ know. That's nothing—rather, that's the worst of it. While he is wandering in the sphere of sublime thought, I fear he's not likely to learn much of a world so deceptive and prosaic as ours, which takes no interest in the subtleties of the mind until three centuries after genius has been buried.

TEODORA. But with you for a guide, Julian—you don't intend to abandon him yet a while, surely?

D. JULIAN. God forbid. I should be black-hearted indeed if I would so readily forget all I owe his father. Don Juan of Acedo risked for my family name and wealth, ay, almost his life. Should this lad need mine, he might ask it, and welcome. 'Twould be but just payment of the debt my name represents.

TEODORA. Well said, Julian. It is like you.

D. JULIAN. You remember, about a year ago, I heard my good friend was dead, and his son was left badly off. I lost no time, caught the train to Gerona, nearly used force, and carried the boy back here. When he stood in the middle of this room I said to him: 'You are master here; you may command me and mine. Since I owe your father everything, you must regard me in the light of his representative. If I fall short, my desire is to come as near as possible to him. As for the amount of affection I have to dispose of—we'll see if I don't outrace him there.'

TEODORA. I remember it well. The soft-hearted fellow burst out crying, and clung to you like a child.

D. JULIAN. He's but a child, as you say. That's why we must think and plan for him. And 'twas of that I was so seriously thinking a moment ago. I was meditating a half-formed project, while you, dear, wanted me to contemplate a panorama of radiant cloud and scarlet sun that cannot compare with the sun that shines in my own heaven.

TEODORA. I cannot divine your idea. What is it you project doing for Ernest?

D. JULIAN. Those are my words.

TEODORA. But is there something yet undone that you expect to discover? He has lived with us for the past year like one of ourselves. Were he your son, or a brother of mine, could you show him more tenderness, I more affection?

D. JULIAN. It is much, but not enough.

TEODORA. Not enough! I fancy,——

D. JULIAN. You are thinking of the present, and I of the future.

TEODORA. Oh! the future! That is easily settled. See, he lives here with us as long as he likes, for years. It is his home. Then when the just and natural law prompts him to fall in love and desire another, we will marry him. You will nobly share your wealth with him, and we will lead them from the altar to their own house,—_he_ and _she_! The proverb, you know, says wisely, 'for each wedded pair a house.' He will live just a little away from us, but that will be no reason for our forgetting him, or loving him less. I see it all distinctly. They are happy, and we even happier. They have children, of course, and we perhaps more—well, at least, one little girl, who will fall in love with Ernest's son, and to whom we will marry her by and by.

[_Spoken playfully, with volubility, grace, blushes, and lively gesture, according to the actress's talents._]

D. JULIAN. But where in heaven's name are you going to stop? [_Laughing._]

TEODORA. You spoke of his future, Julian, and I've sketched it. If not this one, I will neither approve nor accept it.

D. JULIAN. How like you, Teodora! but——

TEODORA. Ah, there is a but already.

D. JULIAN. Listen, Teodora. It is but a debt we owe to look after the poor fellow as if he were a relative, and obligation runs with the exactions of our affection. So much for himself; so much for his father's son. But every human action is complex, has two points of view, and every medal has its reverse. Which means, Teodora, that you must understand it is a very different matter to give and receive favours; and that in the end Ernest might feel my protection a humiliation. He's a high-spirited, fine lad, a trifle haughty perhaps, and it is imperative there should be an end to his present position. We may, if we can, do more for him, but we must seem to do less.

TEODORA. How so?

D. JULIAN. We'll see—but here he comes——[_Looks down the stage._]

TEODORA. Hush!