Don Lorenzo. Why? The duchess would never consent to her son's marriage with Inés even at that price.
Doña Ángela. Edward answers for his mother's consent.
Don Lorenzo. She will never give in.
Doña Ángela. She will. She is a woman and a mother. We have not all attained such perfection as yours.
Don Lorenzo. I do not believe it.
Doña Ángela. Is it that you do not believe it, or that you fear it?
Don Lorenzo. But supposing she should consent,—how can I retain a name that is not mine?
Doña Ángela. What shabby subtleties to sacrifice my Inés to!
Don Lorenzo. A name, Ángela, in social life is——
Doña Ángela. A name is but a sound, a passing breath of air, something vain and evanescent. But a child, Lorenzo, is a creature made of our own flesh and of the blood in our veins: a creature that, while still nothing, we shelter warm in our bosom, and receive into our arms upon its first cry; that gives us its first smile and its first kiss; that lives by our life, and is at once our sweetest joy and our sharpest sorrow: a creature we love more than ourselves, but without a taste of that selfish leaven which degrades all our other loves; the sole divine affection that exists upon this earth, and if heaven be heaven, beyond the blue it will also be found in God himself. Choose now between what you call a name, and what I call a child.