"If you carry it out dexterously, I have no doubt of it."
"But how can I plot cleverly, when that kind of thing is new to me? I am wanting in friends to assist me, and De Vivar has many such."
"You say that you are wanting in friends?"
"The only person to whom I can give that name is you, Don Garcia, and you have refused me your aid several times when I asked you to help me in such a struggle as you now advise."
"I never refused you my aid, Don Suero; the only thing I did was to ask from you a hostage, so that I could depend on your silence in case our plans might fail; and if you now desire my assistance you must give me that hostage."
"Don Garcia, my family would be much honoured by being united to yours, for you are as noble as a king, although you have been unfortunate; but my sister is still but a child, both on account of her age and of her natural fragility. And besides, to marry her would be but to kill her, for she desires either to live and die by my side or to go into a convent. If you only knew, Don Garcia, how I love her, how sad my life would be without her, you would praise me for not wishing to force her will. I was still a beardless youth when both of us were left orphans, and from that time she has been my only comfort, and I hers."
"When the Infanta is the wife of my son, you will both cease to be orphans, for in me and in my wife, Doña Elvira, she and you will find parents as affectionate as those whom you have lost."
"I appreciate, as I should, the desire which animates you; however, respect the feelings of that poor girl, very unhappy on account of her sad disposition and her delicate constitution."
"Measure by the love that you have for your sister that which I feel for my son, and you need not be surprised that I desire to procure for Nuño the peace of mind that he has lost since the time he first saw Doña Teresa, and heard both cavaliers and peasants speaking so highly of her virtues and good sense."
"I cannot do less than extol the feelings which move you to ask for your son the hand of my sister," said Don Suero, though now almost certain that he would never be able to obtain the assistance of the Count of Cabra, except at the price of the hand of Teresa, "but it is impossible to comply with your wishes."