Doña Laura. You know of it?
Don Gonzalo. Yes. Doña Laura [aside]. Strange are the ways of Providence! This man is my early lover.
Don Gonzalo. The gallant lover, if we refer to the same affair—
Doña Laura. To the duel?
Don Gonzalo. Precisely, to the duel. The gallant lover was—my cousin, of whom I was very fond.
Doña Laura. Oh, yes, a cousin. My friend told me in one of her letters the story of that love affair, truly romantic. He, your cousin, passed by on horseback every morning by the rose path under her window, and tossed up to her balcony a bouquet of flowers which she caught.
Don Gonzalo. And later in the afternoon, the gallant horseman would return by the same path, and catch the bouquet of flowers she would toss him. Was it not so?
Doña Laura. Yes. They wanted to marry her to a merchant whom she did not fancy.
Don Gonzalo. And one night, when my cousin watched under her window to hear her sing, this new lover presented himself unexpectedly.
Doña Laura. And insulted your cousin.