Oakhurst. Well!
Jovita (passionately). There, having scaled the wall, at the risk of being discovered—this is all you have to say! (Turning away.)
Oakhurst (quietly). Perhaps, Jovita (taking her hand with grave earnestness), to a clandestine intimacy like ours there is but one end. It is not merely elopement, not merely marriage, it is exposure! Sooner or later you and I must face the eyes we now shun. What matters if tonight or later?
Jovita (quickly). I am ready. It was you who—
Oakhurst. It was I who first demanded secrecy, but it was I who told you when we last met that I would tell you why to-night.
Jovita. I am ready; but hear me, Juan, nothing can change my faith in you!
Oakhurst (sadly). You know not what you say. Listen, my child. I am a gambler. Not the man who lavishes his fortune at the gaming-table for excitement's sake; not the fanatic who stakes his own earnings—perhaps the confided earnings of others—on a single coup. No, he is the man who loses,—whom the world deplores, pities, and forgives. I am the man who wins—whom the world hates and despises.
Jovita. I do not understand you, Juan.
Oakhurst. So much the better, perhaps. But you must hear me. I make a profession—an occupation more exacting, more wearying, more laborious, than that of your meanest herdsman—of that which others make a dissipation of the senses. And yet, Jovita, there is not the meanest vaquero in this ranch, who, playing against me, winning or losing, is not held to be my superior. I have no friends—only confederates. Even the woman who dares to pity me must do it in secret.
Jovita. But you will abandon this dreadful trade. As the son of the rich Don Jose, no one dare scorn you. My father will relent. I am his heiress.