Love for Love | Page 8

your father's steward says he comes to make proposals
concerning your debts.
VAL. Bid him come in: Mr Trapland, send away your officer; you shall
have an answer presently.
TRAP. Mr Snap, stay within call.
SCENE VII.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL, TRAPLAND, JEREMY, STEWARD who

whispers
VALENTINE.
SCAN. Here's a dog now, a traitor in his wine: sirrah, refund the
sack.--Jeremy, fetch him some warm water, or I'll rip up his stomach,
and go the shortest way to his conscience.
TRAP. Mr Scandal, you are uncivil; I did not value your sack; but you
cannot expect it again when I have drunk it.
SCAN. And how do you expect to have your money again when a
gentleman has spent it?
VAL. You need say no more, I understand the conditions; they are very
hard, but my necessity is very pressing: I agree to 'em. Take Mr
Trapland with you, and let him draw the writing. Mr Trapland, you
know this man: he shall satisfy you.
TRAP. Sincerely, I am loth to be thus pressing, but my necessity -
VAL. No apology, good Mr Scrivener, you shall be paid.
TRAP. I hope you forgive me; my business requires -
SCENE VIII.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL.
SCAN. He begs pardon like a hangman at an execution.
VAL. But I have got a reprieve.
SCAN. I am surprised; what, does your father relent?
VAL. No; he has sent me the hardest conditions in the world. You have
heard of a booby brother of mine that was sent to sea three years ago?
This brother, my father hears, is landed; whereupon he very
affectionately sends me word; if I will make a deed of conveyance of
my right to his estate, after his death, to my younger brother, he will
immediately furnish me with four thousand pounds to pay my debts

and make my fortune. This was once proposed before, and I refused it;
but the present impatience of my creditors for their money, and my
own impatience of confinement, and absence from Angelica, force me
to consent.
SCAN. A very desperate demonstration of your love to Angelica; and I
think she has never given you any assurance of hers.
VAL. You know her temper; she never gave me any great reason either
for hope or despair.
SCAN. Women of her airy temper, as they seldom think before they act,
so they rarely give us any light to guess at what they mean. But you
have little reason to believe that a woman of this age, who has had an
indifference for you in your prosperity, will fall in love with your
ill-fortune; besides, Angelica has a great fortune of her own; and great
fortunes either expect another great fortune, or a fool.
SCENE IX.
[To them] JEREMY.
JERE. More misfortunes, sir.
VAL. What, another dun?
JERE. No, sir, but Mr Tattle is come to wait upon you.
VAL. Well, I can't help it, you must bring him up; he knows I don't go
abroad.
SCENE X.
VALENTINE, SCANDAL.
SCAN. Pox on him, I'll be gone.
VAL. No, prithee stay: Tattle and you should never be asunder; you are
light and shadow, and show one another; he is perfectly thy reverse

both in humour and understanding; and as you set up for defamation,
he is a mender of reputations.
SCAN. A mender of reputations! Ay, just as he is a keeper of secrets,
another virtue that he sets up for in the same manner. For the rogue will
speak aloud in the posture of a whisper, and deny a woman's name
while he gives you the marks of her person. He will forswear receiving
a letter from her, and at the same time show you her hand in the
superscription: and yet perhaps he has
counterfeited the hand too, and
sworn to a truth; but he hopes not to be believed, and refuses the
reputation of a lady's favour, as a Doctor says no to a Bishopric only
that it may be granted him. In short, he is public professor of secrecy,
and makes proclamation that he holds private intelligence.--He's here.
SCENE XI.
[To them] TATTLE.
TATT. Valentine, good morrow; Scandal, I am yours: --that is, when
you speak well of me.
SCAN. That is, when I am yours; for while I am my own, or anybody's
else, that will never happen.
TATT. How inhuman!
VAL. Why Tattle, you need not be much concerned at anything that he
says: for to converse with Scandal, is to play at losing loadum; you
must lose a good name to him before you can win it for yourself.
TATT. But how barbarous that is, and how unfortunate for him, that
the world shall think the better of any person for his calumniation! I
thank heaven, it has always been a part of my character to handle