enough to
offer you.

Faustine
Your monopoly of the wheat trade is a monstrous abuse.

Avaloros
Senora, I owe you a thousand doubloons.

Faustine
Write me at once a receipt for the two thousand doubloons, and a check
for the like sum which I do not intend to pay you. (To Sarpi) After
having put you in the position in which you now flourish, I warn you
that your best policy is to keep my secret.

Sarpi
My obligations to you are too great to admit of my being ungrateful.

Faustine (aside)
He means just the contrary, and he will make the viceroy furious with
me.

(Exit Sarpi.)

SCENE SIXTH

The same persons, with the exception of Sarpi.

Avaloros
Here they are, senora. (Handing her the receipt and the check.)

Faustine
Very good.

Avaloros
We shall be friends?

Faustine
Your monopoly of the wheat trade is perfectly legal.

Avaloros
Ah! senora.

Quinola (aside)
That is what is called doing business.

Avaloros
Senora, you are a noble creature, and I am--

Quinola (aside)
A regular swindler.

Faustine (offering the check to Quinola)
Here, Quinola, this is for the expenses of your master's machine.

Avaloros (to Faustine)
Don't give it to him, senora, he may keep it for himself, and for
other reasons you should be prudent; you should wait--

Quinola (aside)
I pass from the torrid to the arctic zone; what a gamble is life!

Faustine
You are right. (Aside) Better that I should hold in a balance the
fortune of Fontanares. (To Avaloros) If you wish to keep your monopoly
hold your tongue.

Avaloros
There is nothing keeps a secret better than capital. (Aside) These
women are disinterested until the day they fall in love. I must try to
defeat her; she is beginning to cost me too much. (Exit.)

SCENE SEVENTH

Faustine and Quinola.

Faustine
Did you not tell me he was despondent?

Quinola
Everything is against him.

Faustine
But he knows how to wrestle with difficulties.

Quinola
We have been for two years half drowned in difficulties; sometimes we
have gone to the bottom and the gravel was pretty hard.

Faustine
But what force of character, what genius he has!

Quinola
You see, there, senora, the effects of love.

Faustine
And with whom is he in love now?

Quinola
Still the same--Marie Lothundiaz.

Faustine
A doll!

Quinola
Yes, nothing but a doll.

Faustine
Men of talent are all like that.

Quinol