mine.

MRS. FAIN.  Never.

MRS. MAR.  You hate mankind?

MRS. FAIN.  Heartily, inveterately.

MRS. MAR.  Your husband?

MRS. FAIN.  Most transcendently; ay, though I say it, meritoriously.

MRS. MAR.  Give me your hand upon it.

MRS. FAIN.  There.

MRS. MAR.  I join with you; what I have said has been to try you.

MRS. FAIN.  Is it possible?  Dost thou hate those vipers, men?

MRS. MAR.  I have done hating ’em, and am now come to despise ’em; the next thing I have to do is eternally to forget ’em.

MRS. FAIN.  There spoke the spirit of an Amazon, a Penthesilea.

MRS. MAR.  And yet I am thinking sometimes to carry my aversion further.

MRS. FAIN.  How?

MRS. MAR.  Faith, by marrying; if I could but find one that loved me very well, and would be throughly sensible of ill usage, I think I should do myself the violence of undergoing the ceremony.

MRS. FAIN.  You would not make him a cuckold?

MRS. MAR.  No; but I’d make him believe I did, and that’s as bad.

MRS. FAIN.  Why had not you as good do it?

MRS. MAR.  Oh, if he should ever discover it, he would then know the worst, and be out of his pain; but I would have him ever to continue upon the rack of fear and jealousy.

MRS. FAIN.  Ingenious mischief!  Would thou wert married to Mirabell.

MRS. MAR.  Would I were.

MRS. FAIN.  You change colour.

MRS. MAR.  Because I hate him.

MRS. FAIN.  So do I; but I can hear him named.  But what reason have you to hate him in particular?

MRS. MAR.  I never loved him; he is, and always was, insufferably proud.

MRS. FAIN.  By the reason you give for your aversion, one would think it dissembled; for you have laid a fault to his charge, of which his enemies must acquit him.

MRS. MAR.  Oh, then it seems you are one of his favourable enemies.  Methinks you look a little pale, and now you flush again.

MRS. FAIN.  Do I?  I think I am a little sick o’ the sudden.

MRS. MAR.  What ails you?

MRS. FAIN.  My husband.  Don’t you see him?  He turned short upon me unawares, and has almost overcome me.

SCENE II.

[To them] Fainall and Mirabell.

MRS. MAR.  Ha, ha, ha! he comes opportunely for you.

MRS. FAIN.  For you, for he has brought Mirabell with him.

FAIN.  My dear.

MRS. FAIN.  My soul.

FAIN.  You don’t look well to-day, child.

MRS. FAIN.  D’ye think so?

MIRA.  He is the only man that does, madam.

MRS. FAIN.  The only man that would tell me so at least, and the only man from whom I could hear it without mortification.

FAIN.  Oh, my dear, I am satisfied of your tenderness; I know you cannot resent anything from me; especially what is an effect of my concern.

MRS. FAIN.  Mr. Mirabell, my mother interrupted you in a pleasant relation last night: I would fain hear it out.

MIRA.  The persons concerned in that affair have yet a tolerable reputation.  I am afraid Mr. Fainall will be censorious.

MRS. FAIN.  He has a humour more prevailing than his curiosity, and will willingly dispense with the hearing of one scandalous story, to avoid giving an occasion to make another by being seen to walk with his wife.  This way, Mr. Mirabell, and I dare promise you will oblige us both.

SCENE III.

Fainall, Mrs. Marwood.

FAIN.  Excellent creature!  Well, sure, if I should live to be rid of my wife, I should be a miserable man.

MRS. MAR.  Ay?

FAIN.  For having only that one hope, the accomplishment of it of consequence must put an end to all my hopes, and what a wretch is he who must survive his hopes!  Nothing remains when that day comes but to sit down and weep like Alexander when he wanted other worlds to conquer.

MRS. MAR.  Will you not follow ’em?

FAIN.  Faith, I think not,

MRS. MAR.  Pray let us; I have a reason.

FAIN.  You are not jealous?

MRS. MAR.  Of whom?

FAIN.  Of Mirabell.

MRS. MAR.  If I am, is it inconsistent with my love to you that I am tender of your honour?

FAIN.  You would intimate then, as if there were a fellow-feeling between my wife and him?

MRS. MAR.  I think she does not hate him to that degree she would be thought.

FAIN.  But he, I fear, is too insensible.

MRS. MAR.  It may be you are deceived.

FAIN.  It may be so.  I do not now begin to apprehend it.

MRS. MAR.  What?

FAIN.  That I have been deceived, madam, and you are false.

MRS. MAR.  That I am false?  What mean you?

FAIN.  To let you know I see through all your little arts.—Come, you both love him, and both have equally dissembled your aversion.  Your mutual jealousies of one another have made you clash till you have both struck fire.  I have seen the warm confession red’ning on your cheeks, and sparkling from your eyes.

MRS. MAR.  You do me wrong.

FAIN.  I do not.  ’Twas for my ease to oversee and wilfully neglect the gross advances made him by my wife, that by permitting her to be engaged, I might continue unsuspected in my pleasures, and take you oftener to my arms in full security.  But could you think, because the nodding husband would not wake, that e’er the watchful lover slept?

MRS. MAR.  And wherewithal can you reproach me?

FAIN.  With infidelity, with loving another, with love of Mirabell.

MRS. MAR.  ’Tis false.  I challenge you to show an instance that can confirm your groundless accusation.  I hate him.

FAIN.  And wherefore do you hate him?  He is insensible, and your resentment follows his neglect.  An instance?  The injuries you have done him are a proof: your interposing in his love.  What cause had you to make discoveries of his pretended passion?  To undeceive the credulous aunt, and be the officious obstacle of his match with Millamant?

MRS. MAR.  My obligations to my lady urged me: I had professed a friendship to her, and could not see her easy nature so abused by that dissembler.

FAIN.  What, was it conscience then?  Professed a friendship!  Oh, the pious friendships of the female sex!

MRS. MAR.  More tender, more sincere, and more enduring, than all the vain and empty vows of men, whether professing love to us or mutual faith to one another.

FAIN.  Ha, ha, ha! you are my wife’s friend too.

MRS. MAR.  Shame and ingratitude!  Do you reproach me?  You, you upbraid me?  Have I been false to her, through strict fidelity to you, and sacrificed my friendship to keep my love inviolate?  And have you the baseness to charge me with the guilt, unmindful of the merit?  To you it should be meritorious that I have been vicious.  And do you reflect that guilt upon me which should lie buried in your bosom?

FAIN.  You misinterpret my reproof.  I meant but to remind you of the slight account you once could make of strictest ties when set in competition with your love to me.

MRS. MAR.  ’Tis false, you urged it with deliberate malice.  ’Twas spoke in scorn, and I never will forgive it.

FAIN.  Your guilt, not your resentment, begets your rage.  If yet you loved, you could forgive a jealousy: but you are stung to find you are discovered.

MRS. MAR.  It shall be all discovered.  You too shall be discovered; be sure you shall.  I can but be exposed.  If I do it myself I shall prevent your baseness.

FAIN.  Why, what will you do?

MRS. MAR.  Disclose it to your wife; own what has past between us.

FAIN.  Frenzy!

MRS. MAR.  By all my wrongs I’ll do’t.  I’ll publish to the world the injuries you have done me, both in my fame and fortune: with both I trusted you, you bankrupt in honour, as indigent of wealth.

FAIN.  Your