Helen. No.
Gerardo. How happy I should be if they were mine!—Helen—would you give them to me?
Helen. Yes.
Gerardo (half jokingly). Suppose I should be as unreasonable as you—taking it into my head that I am in love with some particular woman and can love no other! I cannot marry her. I cannot take her with me. Yet I must leave. Just what would that lead me to?
Helen (from now on growing constantly calmer). Yes, yes.—Certainly.—I understand.
Gerardo. Believe me, Helen, there are any number of men in this world like me. The very way you and I have met ought to teach you something. You say you cannot live without me. How many men do you know? The more you will come to know the lower you will rate them. Then you won't think again of taking your life for a man's sake. You will have no higher opinion of them than I have of women.
Helen. You think I am just like you. I am not.
Gerardo. I am quite serious, Helen. Nobody loves just one particular person unless he does not know any other. Everybody loves his own kind and can find it anywhere when he has once learned how to go about it.
Helen (smiling). And when one has met one's kind, one is always sure of having one's love returned!
Gerardo (drawing her down on the sofa). You have no right, Helen, to complain of your husband! Why did you not know yourself better! Every young girl is free to choose for herself. There is no power on earth that could compel a girl to belong to a man whom she doesn't like. No such violence can be done to woman's rights. That's a kind of nonsense those women would like to make the world believe who having sold themselves for some material advantage or other would prefer to escape their obligations.