“Well, if you won’t answer, I shall take it for granted you are annoyed; besides looking a little alarmed too. You’ve no need to be that.”
“No, indeed,” endorses Calderon. “We mean you no harm—none whatever.”
“On the contrary,” goes on De Lara, “only good. We’ve nothing but favours to offer you.”
“Don Francisco de Lara!” exclaims Carmen, at length breaking silence, and speaking in a tone of piteous expostulation; “and you, Don Faustino Calderon, why have you committed this crime? What injury have we ever done you?”
“Come! not so fast, fair Carmen! Crime’s a harsh word, and we’ve not committed any as yet—nothing to speak of.”
“No crime! Santissima! My father—my poor father!”
“Don’t be uneasy about him. He’s safe enough.”
“Safe! Dead! Drowned! Dios de mi alma!”
“No, no. That’s all nonsense,” protests the fiend, adding falsehood to his sin of deeper dye. “Don Gregorio is not where you say. Instead of being at the sea’s bottom, he is sailing upon its surface; and is likely to be, for Heaven knows how long. But let’s drop that subject of the past, which seems unpleasant to you, and talk of the present—of ourselves. You ask what injury you’ve ever done us? Faustino Calderon may answer for himself to the fair Iñez. To you, Doña Carmen, I shall make reply—But we may as well confer privately.”
At this he lays hold of her wrist, and leads her aside; Calderon conducting Iñez in the opposite direction.