Margaret: And what could be heavy for you? Things affect you like water off a duck’s back. Silly thing! Because of your “silly thing,” other women kill themselves, others beat their chests all their lives, others reject love forever, others confess it trembling, as though they had skinned a child alive. But, yes, you’re right: anything you do seems just chance, silliness. …Your actions take the color of your character; my actions take theirs from mine. …

Tendril: Maybe, yes, but what do you want me to do? Should I destroy my life and be honest? And tell me: are men honest with their women and do they tell them, before marrying, of their lecheries? Why should we humiliate ourselves before them? Don’t you see that it’s a life or death matter? No, no; I don’t want to tell a single word to Ochoa; he has said twenty times that he’s too much of a man to accept the love of a woman who has already loved. Don’t you know that? 

Margaret (Bursting with glee, because he, who is humiliating her, is at the same time giving her the opportunity to humiliate him) Like Tendril! 

Claudio: Yes, perhaps, like Tendril!
 

Margaret: (Yelling, out of control) Tendril! …Come down! (Without noticing her own yelling, continues her reasoning) Besides, at that age, thinking hasn’t deformed the natural character yet; hasn’t twisted it, hasn’t spotted it; the malice, the cunning haven’t yet arisen. One can take a woman then and shape her as one pleases and order her intelligence to make her more of a woman. (Yelling even more, in her desire to throw Tendril into Claudio’s arms as soon as possible) Tendril! Tendril!