Part 16 (1/2)

LADY FROTH. With all my heart.

BRISK. Come, my lord, I'll wait on you. My charming witty angel! [_To her_.]

LADY FROTH. We shall have whispering time enough, you know, since we are partners.

SCENE VIII.

LADY PLYANT _and_ CARELESS.

LADY PLYANT. Oh, Mr. Careless, Mr. Careless, I'm ruined, I'm undone.

CARE. What's the matter, madam?

LADY PLYANT. Oh, the unluckiest accident, I'm afraid I shan't live to tell it you.

CARE. Heaven forbid! What is it?

LADY PLYANT. I'm in such a fright; the strangest quandary and premunire!

I'm all over in a universal agitation; I dare swear every circ.u.mstance of me trembles. O your letter, your letter! By an unfortunate mistake I have given Sir Paul your letter instead of his own.

CARE. That was unlucky.

LADY PLYANT. Oh, yonder he comes reading of it; for heaven's sake step in here and advise me quickly before he sees.

SCENE IX.

SIR PAUL _with the Letter_.

SIR PAUL. O Providence, what a conspiracy have I discovered. But let me see to make an end on't. [_Reads_.] Hum--After supper in the wardrobe by the gallery. If Sir Paul should surprise us, I have a commission from him to treat with you about the very matter of fact. Matter of fact!

Very pretty; it seems that I am conducting to my own cuckoldom. Why, this is the very traitorous position of taking up arms by my authority, against my person! Well, let me see. Till then I languish in expectation of my adored charmer.--Dying Ned Careless. Gads-bud, would that were matter of fact too. Die and be d.a.m.ned for a Judas Maccabeus and Iscariot both. O friends.h.i.+p! what art thou but a name? Henceforward let no man make a friend that would not be a cuckold: for whomsoever he receives into his bosom will find the way to his bed, and there return his caresses with interest to his wife. Have I for this been pinioned, night after night for three years past? Have I been swathed in blankets till I have been even deprived of motion? Have I approached the marriage bed with reverence as to a sacred shrine, and denied myself the enjoyment of lawful domestic pleasures to preserve its purity, and must I now find it polluted by foreign iniquity? O my Lady Plyant, you were chaste as ice, but you are melted now, and false as water. But Providence has been constant to me in discovering this conspiracy; still, I am beholden to Providence. If it were not for Providence, sure, poor Sir Paul, thy heart would break.

SCENE X.

[_To him_] LADY PLYANT.

LADY PLYANT. So, sir, I see you have read the letter. Well, now, Sir Paul, what do you think of your friend Careless? Has he been treacherous, or did you give his insolence a licence to make trial of your wife's suspected virtue? D'ye see here? [_s.n.a.t.c.hes the letter as in anger_.] Look, read it. Gads my life, if I thought it were so, I would this moment renounce all communication with you. Ungrateful monster! He? is it so? Ay, I see it, a plot upon my honour; your guilty cheeks confess it. Oh, where shall wronged virtue fly for reparation?

I'll be divorced this instant.

SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, what shall I say? This is the strangest surprise.

Why, I don't know anything at all, nor I don't know whether there be anything at all in the world, or no.