Jovita (musing). A drunkard! (Aside.) There was Diego, he was a drunkard; but he was faithless. (Aloud.) You mean a weak, faithless drunkard?
Miss Mary. No! (Sadly.) Faithless only to himself, but devoted—yes, devoted to YOU.
Jovita. Miss Mary, I have found that one big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones.
Miss Mary. Yes; but if he were a slave to liquor?
Jovita. My dear, I should try to change his mistress. Oh, give me a man that is capable of a devotion to anything, rather than a cold, calculating average of all the virtues!
Miss Mary (aside). I, who aspire to be her teacher, am only her pupil. (Aloud.) But what if, in this very drunkenness, this recklessness, he had once loved and worshipped another woman? What if you discovered all this after—after—he had won your heart?
Jovita. I should adore him! Ah, Miss Mary! Love differs from all the other contagious diseases: the last time a man is exposed to it, he takes it most readily, and has it the worst! But you, YOU cannot sympathize with me. You have some lover, the ideal of the virtues; some man as correct, as well regulated, as calm as—yourself; some one who addresses you in the fixed morality and severe penmanship of the copy-books. He will never precipitate himself over a garden wall or through a window. Your Jacob will wait for you through seven years, and receive you from the hands of your cousin and guardian—as a reward of merit! No, you could not love a vagabond.
Miss Mary (very slowly and quietly). No?
Jovita. No! (Passionately.) No, it is impossible. Forgive me, Miss Mary: you are good; a better girl than I am. But think of me! A year ago my lover leaped a wall at midnight to fly with me: today, the day that gives me to him, he writes a few cold lines, saying that he has business, BUSINESS—you understand—business, and that he shall not see me until we meet in the presence of—of—of—our fathers.
Miss Mary. Yes; but you will see him at least, perhaps alone. Listen: it is no formal meeting, but one of festivity. My guardian has told me, in his quaint scriptural way, it is the killing of the fatted calf, over his long-lost prodigal. Have patience, little one. Ah! Jovita, we are of a different race, but we are of one sex; and as a woman I know how to accept another woman's abuse of her lover. Come, come! [Exeunt MISS MARY and JOVITA.