Monipodio (aside) Alas, those poor children are ruined! (To Lothundiaz) Alms is a treasure which is laid up in heaven.
Lothundiaz Go to work, and you can lay up treasures here on earth. (He looks round) I do not see my daughter and her duenna in their usual place.
Monipodio (to Lothundiaz)
The Spaniard is by nature generous.
Lothundiaz Oh! get away! I am a Catalonian and suspicious by nature. (He catches sight of his daughter and Fontanares.) What do I see? My daughter with a young senor! (He runs up to them) It is hard enough to pay duennas for guarding children with the heart and eyes of a mother without finding them deceivers. (To his daughter) How is it that you, Marie, heiress of ten thousand sequins a year, should speak to—do my eyes deceive me? It is that blasted machinist who hasn't a maravedi.
(Monipodio makes signs to Quinola.)
Marie
Alfonso Fontanares is without fortune; he has seen the king.
Lothundiaz
So much the worst for the king.
Fontanares Senor Lothundiaz, I am quite in a position to aspire to the hand of your daughter.
Lothundiaz
Ah!
Fontanares
Will you accept for your son-in-law the Duke of Neptunado, grandee of
Spain, and favorite of the king?