Among the gayly dressed and perfumed ladies
Fluttered like butterflies among the flowers.
There was the Countess of Medina Celi;
The Goblin Lady with her Phantom Lover,
Her Lindo Don Diego; Doña Sol,

And Doña Serafina, and her cousins.

DON CARLOS.

What was the play?

LARA.

It was a dull affair ;

One of those comedies in which you see,

As Lope says, the history of the world

Brought down from Genesis to the Day of Judg.

ment.

There were three duels fought in the first act,
Three gentlemen receiving deadly wounds,

Laying their hands upon their hearts, and saying,

..

"O, I am dead!" a lover in a closet,

An old hidalgo, and a gay Don Juan,
A Doña Inez with a black mantilla,

Followed at twilight by an unknown lover,

Who looks intently where he knows she is not!

DON CARLOS.

Of course, the Preciosa danced to-night ?

LARA.

And never better. Every footstep fell

As lightly as a sunbeam on the water.
I think the girl extremely beautiful.

DON CARLOS.

Almost beyond the privilege of woman!

I saw her in the Prado yesterday.

Her step was royal,-queen-like,—and her face

As beautiful as a saint's in Paradise.

LARA.

May not a saint fall from her Paradise,

And be no more a saint ?

DON CARLOS.

Why do you ask?

LARA.

Because I have heard it said this angel fell,

And, though she is a virgin outwardly,
Within she is a sinner; like those panels
Of doors and altar-pieces the old monks
Painted in convents, with the Virgin Mary
On the outside, and on the inside Venus !

DON CARLOS.

You do her wrong; indeed, you do her wrong! She is as virtuous as she is fair.

LARA.

How credulous you are! Why look you, friend,
There's not a virtuous woman in Madrid,
In this whole city! And would you persuade me
That a mere dancing-girl, who shows herself,
Nightly, half-naked, on the stage, for money,
And with voluptuous motions fires the blood
Of inconsiderate youth, is to be held
A model for her virtue ?

DON CARLOS.

She is a Gipsy girl.

You forget

The easier.

LARA.

And therefore won

DON CARLOS.

Nay, not to be won at all!

The only virtue that a Gipsy prizes
Is chastity. That is her only virtue.
Dearer than life she holds it. I remember
A Gipsy woman, a vile, shameless bawd,
Whose craft was to betray the young and fair;
And yet this woman was above all bribes.
And when a noble lord, touched by her beauty,
The wild and wizard beauty of her race,
Offered her gold to be what she made others,
She turned upon him, with a look of scorn,
And smote him in the face!

LARA.

And does that prove

That Preciosa is above suspicion ?

DON CARLOS.

It proves a nobleman may be repulsed

When he thinks conquest easy. I believe

That woman, in her deepest degradation,
Holds something sacred, something undefiled,
Some pledge and keepsake of her higher nature,
And, like the diamond in the dark, retains

Some quenchless gleam of the celestial light!

LARA.

Yet Preciosa would have taken the gold.

DON CARLOS (rising).

I do not think so.

LARA.

I am sure of it.

But why this haste? Stay yet a little longer, And fight the battles of your Dulcinea.

DON CARLOS.

'T is late. I must begone, for if I stay

You will not be persuaded.

LARA.

Yes; persuade me.

DON CARLOS.

No one so deaf as he who will not hear