The Way of the World | Page 6

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 cabalnight. 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 own man again.
MIRA. Say you so?
FAIN. Ay, ay; I have experience. I have a wife, and so forth.
SCENE IV.
[To them] MESSENGER.
MESS. Is one Squire Witwoud here?
BET. Yes; what's your business?
MESS. I have a letter for him, from his brother Sir Wilfull, which I am charged to deliver into his own hands.
BET. He's in the next room, friend. That way.
SCENE V.
MIRABELL, FAINALL, BETTY.
MIRA. What, is the chief of that noble family in town, Sir Wilfull Witwoud?
FAIN. He is expected to-day. Do you know him?
MIRA. I have seen him; he promises to be an extraordinary person. I think you have the honour to be related to him.
FAIN. Yes; he is half-brother to this Witwoud by a former wife,