ZER. I accept the offer, and I am not one to draw back when friendship is asked of me.
SCA. And when it is love that is asked of you?
ZER. Ah! love is a different thing. One runs more risk, and I feel less determined.
SCA. You are determined enough against my master, and yet what he has just done for you ought to give you confidence enough to respond to his love as you should.
ZER. As yet I only half trust him, and what he has just done is not sufficient to reassure me. I am of a happy disposition, and am very fond of fun, it is true. But though I laugh, I am serious about many things; and your master will find himself deceived if he thinks that it is sufficient for him to have bought me, for me to be altogether his. He will have to give something else besides money, and for me to answer to his love as he wishes me, he must give me his word, with an accompaniment of certain little ceremonies which are thought indispensable.
SCA. It is so he understands this matter. He only wants you as his wife, and I am not a man to have mixed in this business if he had meant anything else.
ZER. I believe it since you say so; but I foresee certain difficulties with the father.
SCA. We shall find a way of settling that.
HYA. (to ZERBINETTE). The similarity of our fate ought to strengthen the tie of friendship between us. We are both subject to the same fears, both exposed to the same misfortune.
ZER. You have this advantage at least that you know who your parents are, and that, sure of their help, when you wish to make them known, you can secure your happiness by obtaining a consent to the marriage you have contracted. But I, on the contrary, have no such hope to fall back upon, and the position I am in is little calculated to satisfy the wishes of a father whose whole care is money.