Florio
Speak not so, Violante—I pray you go!
Violante
You love another, then?
Florio [ecstatically]
I have loved beauty, beauty all my life!
Violante
We are not metaphors and pale abstractions,
We women ... nor would we be prized alone
For smooth perfections.... [Low and intense] Say that you loved a woman
Smitten with the Plague, say, further, that she lived—
One among ten thousand—that she came back to you,
[The one thing sure] hideous and marred—
Florio
You try me sorely!
Violante, I pray you, go!