A drunkard! (Aside.) There was Diego, he was a
drunkard; but he was faithless. (Aloud.) You mean a weak,
faithless drunkard?
Miss Mary. No! (Sadly.) Faithless only to himself, but devoted--
yes, devoted to YOU.
Jovita. Miss Mary, I have found that one big vice in a man is apt
to keep out a great many smaller ones.
Miss Mary. Yes; but if he were a slave to liquor?
Jovita. My dear, I should try to change his mistress. Oh, give me
a man that is capable of a devotion to anything, rather than a
cold, calculating average of all the virtues!
Miss Mary (aside). I, who aspire to be her teacher, am only her
pupil. (Aloud.) But what if, in this very drunkenness, this
recklessness, he had once loved and worshipped another woman? What
if you discovered all this after--after--he had won your heart?
Jovita. I should adore him! Ah, Miss Mary! Love differs from all
the other contagious diseases: the last time a man is exposed to
it, he takes it most readily, and has it the worst! But you, YOU
cannot sympathize with me. You have some lover, the ideal of the
virtues; some man as correct, as well regulated, as calm as--
yourself; some one who addresses you in the fixed morality and
severe penmanship of the copy-books. He will never precipitate
himself over a garden wall or through a window. Your Jacob will
wait for you through seven years, and receive you from the hands of
your cousin and guardian--as a reward of merit! No, you could not
love a vagabond.
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