"Whether I marry or don't marry, as long as there remain Moors for my master Don Rodrigo to fight against, I will not give up my lance."
"But don't you love Mayorica?"
"I love her, and will continue to love her with all my soul. Oh, how I long to arrive at Burgos, to see her after so long a separation!"
"Now I see," replied Lope, "that you are begging the question as to whether you will marry her or not."
"I am indeed thinking of marrying, but it is an unfair thing to have to bind oneself before God to love only one woman, considering that there are two or even more for every man."
"Leave aside all that nonsense, comrade, for it sounds badly coming from a man so ripe in years as you are. To think as you think should be only for beardless youths, such as he who yesterday rescued the standard of Don Rodrigo, and I am of opinion that even he would not talk of love with as little sense as you display in the matter."
"Do you know," said Alvar, "that I look on the friendship and honours which Don Rodrigo confers on that youth as signs of mere craziness."
"Craziness?" cried Fernan, whose anger was aroused on hearing the page find fault with his master. "The craziness, which deserves more stripes than you have hairs on your head, is your own, you confounded fool and chatterbox. All that Don Rodrigo does is well done."
"I only meant to say that nobody knows in the least who that young man is; and as to his companions, everybody knows, for they tell it themselves, that they are the band of the Vengador."