The Way of the World | Page 6

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 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