Lothundiaz (to Fontanares)
But you must tell me what you have promised.

Fontanares
The King of Spain, learning of my love for your daughter, is coming to
Barcelona to see a ship propelled without oars or sails, by a machine
of my invention, and will himself honor our marriage by his presence.

Lothundiaz (aside)
He is laughing at me. (Aloud) You are very likely to propel a ship
without sails or oars! I hope you will do it; I'll go to see it. It
would amuse me, but I don't wish to have for a son-in-law any man of
such lofty dreams. Girls brought up in our families need no prodigies
for husbands, but men who are content to mind their business at their
own homes, and leave the affairs of the sun and moon alone. All that I
want is that my son-in-law should be the good father of his family.

Fontanares
Your daughter, senor, when she was but twelve years old, smiled on me
as Beatrice smiled on Dante. Child as she was, she saw in me at first
naught but a brother; since then, as we felt ourselves separated by
fortune, she has watched me as I formed that bold enterprise which
should bridge with glory the gulf that stood between us. It was for
her sake I went to Italy and studied with Galileo. She was the first
to applaud my work, the first to understand it. She had wedded herself
to my thought before it had occurred to her that one day she might wed
herself to me. It is thus she has become the whole world to me. Do you
now understand how I adore her?