Don Manuel de Lara: We rarely play with love.
Sister Pilar: No.
Don Manuel de Lara: No.
Sister Pilar: I would fain learn more of this knight. He loves my sister?
Don Manuel de Lara: Ah! yes. His soul snatched the torch of love from his body, then gave it back again, then again snatched it. She is all twined round with his dreams; she smiles at him with his mother’s eyes; she is Belerma the Fair and Doña Alda of his childhood’s ballads. She is a fair ship charged with spices, she is all the flowers that have blossomed since the Third Day of the Creation, she is the bread not made with wheat, she ... she ... she is a key, like this one (holding up the key), but wrought in silver and ivory.
Sister Pilar: A key? Strange! (smiling a little). And what is he to her?
Don Manuel de Lara: He to her? I know not ... perhaps also a key.
(Pause.)
Sister Pilar: So you know my home? You have heard our slaves crooning Moorish melodies from their quarters on moonlight nights, perchance you have handled my father’s chessmen and the Portuguese pennon he won from a French count at Tables ... oh! he was so proud of that pennon! How is the Cid?