SCENE EIGHTH
Faustine and Fregose.
Fregose While you expect the master, you spend your time in corrupting the servant.
Faustine
Can a woman ever lose her habit of seduction?
Fregose
Senora, you are ungenerous; I should think that a patrician lady of
Venice would know how to spare the feelings of an old soldier.
Faustine Come, my lord, you presume more upon your white hair than a young man would presume upon his fairest locks, and you find in them a stronger argument than in—(She laughs). Let me have no more of this petulance.
Fregose How can I be otherwise than vexed when you compromise yourself thus, you, whom I wish to be my wife? Is it nothing to have a chance of bearing one of the noblest of names?
Faustine
Do you think it is too noble for a Brancadori?
Fregose
Yet, you would prefer stooping to a Fontanares!
Faustine But what if he could raise himself as high as to a Brancadori? That would be a proof of love indeed! Besides, as you know from your own experience, love never reasons.