into a profound silence.
FAIN. They had a mind to be rid of you.

MIRA. For which reason I resolved not to stir. At last the good
old lady broke through her painful taciturnity with an invective

against long visits. I would not have understood her, but Millamant
joining in the argument, I rose and with a constrained smile told

her, I thought nothing was so easy as to know when a visit began to
be troublesome; she reddened and I withdrew, without expecting her

reply.
FAIN. You were to blame to resent what she spoke only in compliance

with her aunt.
MIRA. She is more mistress of herself than to be under the

necessity of such a resignation.
FAIN. What? though half her fortune depends upon her marrying with

my lady's approbation?
MIRA. I was then in such a humour, that I should have been better

pleased if she had been less discreet.
FAIN. Now I remember, I wonder not they were weary of you; last

night was one of their cabal-nights: they have 'em three times a
week and meet by turns at one another's apartments, where they come

together like the coroner's inquest, to sit upon the murdered
reputations of the week. You and I are excluded, and it was once

proposed that all the male sex should be excepted; but somebody
moved that to avoid scandal there might be one man of the community,

upon which motion Witwoud and Petulant were enrolled members.
MIRA. And who may have been the foundress of this sect? My Lady

Wishfort, I warrant, who publishes her detestation of mankind, and
full of the vigour of fifty-five, declares for a friend and ratafia;

and let posterity shift for itself, she'll breed no more.
FAIN. The discovery of your sham addresses to her, to conceal your

love to her niece, has provoked this separation. Had you dissembled
better, things might have continued in the state of nature.

MIRA. I did as much as man could, with any reasonableconscience; I
proceeded to the very last act of flattery with her, and was guilty

of a song in her commendation. Nay, I got a friend to put her into
a lampoon, and compliment her with the imputation of an affair with

a young fellow, which I carried so far, that I told her the
malicious town took notice that she was grown fat of a sudden; and

when she lay in of a dropsy, persuaded her she was reported to be in
labour. The devil's in't, if an old woman is to be flattered

further, unless a man should endeavourdownrightpersonally to
debauch her: and that my virtueforbade me. But for the discovery

of this amour, I am indebted to your friend, or your wife's friend,
Mrs. Marwood.

FAIN. What should provoke her to be your enemy, unless she has made
you advances which you have slighted? Women do not easily forgive

omissions of that nature.
MIRA. She was always civil to me, till of late. I confess I am not

one of those coxcombs who are apt to interpret a woman's good
manners to her prejudice, and think that she who does not refuse 'em

everything can refuse 'em nothing.
FAIN. You are a gallant man, Mirabell; and though you may have

cruelty enough not to satisfy a lady's longing, you have too much
generosity not to be tender of her honour. Yet you speak with an

indifference which seems to be affected, and confesses you are
conscious of a negligence.

MIRA. You pursue the argument with a distrust that seems to be
unaffected, and confesses you are conscious of a concern for which

the lady is more indebted to you than is your wife.
FAIN. Fie, fie, friend, if you grow censorious I must leave you:-

I'll look upon the gamesters in the next room.
MIRA. Who are they?

FAIN. Petulant and Witwoud.--Bring me some chocolate.
MIRA. Betty, what says your clock?

BET. Turned of the last canonical hour, sir.
MIRA. How pertinently the jade answers me! Ha! almost one a'

clock! [Looking on his watch.] Oh, y'are come!
SCENE II.

MIRABELL and FOOTMAN.
MIRA. Well, is the grand affair over? You have been something

tedious.
SERV. Sir, there's such coupling at Pancras that they stand behind

one another, as 'twere in a country-dance. Ours was the last couple
to lead up; and no hopes appearing of dispatch, besides, the parson

growing hoarse, we were afraid his lungs would have failed before it
came to our turn; so we drove round to Duke's Place, and there they

were riveted in a trice.
MIRA. So, so; you are sure they are married?

SERV. Married and bedded, sir; I am witness.
MIRA. Have you the certificate?

SERV. Here it is, sir.
MIRA. Has the tailor brought Waitwell's clothes home, and the new

liveries?
SERV. Yes, sir.

MIRA. That's well. Do you go home again, d'ye hear, and adjourn
the consummation till farther order; bid Waitwell shake his ears,

and Dame Partlet rustle up her feathers, and meet me at one a' clock
by Rosamond's pond, that I may see her before she returns to her

lady. And, as you tender your ears, be secret.
SCENE III.

MIRABELL, FAINALL, BETTY.
FAIN. Joy of your success, Mirabell; you look pleased.

MIRA. Ay; I have been engaged in a matter of some sort of mirth,
which is not yet ripe for discovery. I am glad this is not a cabal-

night. I wonder, Fainall, that you who are married, and of
consequence should be discreet, will suffer your wife to be of such

a party.
FAIN. Faith, I am not jealous. Besides, most who are engaged are

women and relations; and for the men, they are of a kind too
contemptible to give scandal.

MIRA. I am of another opinion: the greater the coxcomb, always the
more the scandal; for a woman who is not a fool can have but one

reason for associating with a man who is one.
FAIN. Are you jealous as often as you see Witwoud entertained by

Millamant?
MIRA. Of her understanding I am, if not of her person.

FAIN. You do her wrong; for, to give her her due, she has wit.
MIRA. She has beauty enough to make any man think so, and

complaisance enough not to contradict him who shall tell her so.
FAIN. For a passionate lover methinks you are a man somewhat too

discerning in the failings of your mistress.
MIRA. And for a discerning man somewhat too passionate a lover, for

I like her with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults. Her
follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her, and

those affectations which in another woman would be odious serve but
to make her more agreeable. I'll tell thee, Fainall, she once used

me with that insolence that in revenge I took her to pieces, sifted
her, and separated her failings: I studied 'em and got 'em by rote.

The catalogue was so large that I was not without hopes, one day or
other, to hate her heartily. To which end I so used myself to think

of 'em, that at length, contrary to my design and expectation, they
gave me every hour less and less disturbance, till in a few days it

became habitual to me to remember 'em without being displeased.
They are now grown as familiar to me as my own frailties, and in all

probability in a little time longer I shall like 'em as well.
FAIN. Marry her, marry her; be half as well acquainted with her

charms as you are with her defects, and, my life on't, you are your