FAINALL, MRS. MARWOOD.
FAINALL Excellent creature! Well, sure, if I should live to be rid of my wife, I should be a miserable man.
MRS. MARWOOD Ay?
FAINALL 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. MARWOOD Will you not follow 'em?
FAINALL Faith, I think not,
MRS. MARWOOD Pray let us; I have a reason.
FAINALL You are not jealous?
MRS. MARWOOD Of whom?
FAINALL Of Mirabell.
MRS. MARWOOD If I am, is it inconsistent with my love to you that I am tender of your honour?
FAINALL You would intimate then, as if there were a fellow-feeling between my wife and him?
MRS. MARWOOD I think she does not hate him to that degree she would be thought.
FAINALL But he, I fear, is too insensible.
MRS. MARWOOD It may be you are deceived.
FAINALL It may be so. I do not now begin to apprehend it.
MRS. MARWOOD What?
FAINALL That I have been deceived, madam, and you are false.
MRS. MARWOOD That I am false? What mean you?
FAINALL 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. MARWOOD You do me wrong.
FAINALL 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. MARWOOD And wherewithal can you reproach me?
FAINALL With infidelity, with loving another, with love of Mirabell.
MRS. MARWOOD 'Tis false. I challenge you to show an instance that can confirm your groundless accusation. I hate him.
FAINALL 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. MARWOOD 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.
FAINALL What, was it conscience then? Professed a friendship! Oh, the pious friendships of the female sex!
MRS. MARWOOD 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.
FAINALL Ha, ha, ha! you are my wife's friend too.
MRS. MARWOOD 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?
FAINALL 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. MARWOOD 'Tis false, you urged it with deliberate malice. 'Twas spoke in scorn, and I never will forgive it.
FAINALL 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. MARWOOD 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.
FAINALL Why, what will you do?
MRS. MARWOOD Disclose it to your wife; own what has past between us.
FAINALL Frenzy!
MRS. MARWOOD 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.
FAINALL Your fame I have preserved. Your fortune has been bestowed as the prodigality of your love would have it, in pleasures which we both have shared. Yet, had not you been false I had e'er this repaid it. 'Tis true--had you permitted Mirabell with Millamant to have stolen their marriage, my lady had been incensed beyond all means of reconcilement: Millamant had forfeited the moiety of her fortune, which then would have descended to my wife. And wherefore did I marry but to make lawful prize of a rich widow's wealth, and squander it on love and you?
MRS. MARWOOD Deceit and frivolous pretence!
FAINALL Death, am I not married? What's pretence? Am I not imprisoned, fettered? Have I not a wife? Nay, a wife that was a widow, a young widow, a handsome widow, and would be again a widow, but that I have a heart of proof, and something of a constitution to bustle through the ways of wedlock and this world. Will you yet be reconciled to truth and me?
MRS. MARWOOD Impossible. Truth and you are inconsistent.--I hate you, and shall for ever.
FAINALL For loving you?
MRS. MARWOOD I loathe the name of love after such usage; and next to the guilt with which you would asperse me, I scorn you most. Farewell.
FAINALL Nay, we must not part thus.
MRS. MARWOOD Let me go.
FAINALL Come, I'm sorry.
MRS. MARWOOD I care not. Let me go. Break my hands, do--I'd leave 'em to get loose.
FAINALL I would not hurt you for the world. Have I no other hold to keep you here?
MRS. MARWOOD Well, I have deserved it all.
FAINALL You know I love you.
MRS. MARWOOD Poor dissembling! Oh, that--well, it is not yet -
FAINALL What? What is it not? What is it not yet? It is not yet too late -
MRS. MARWOOD No, it is not yet too late--I have that comfort.
FAINALL It is, to love another.
MRS. MARWOOD But not to loathe, detest, abhor mankind, myself, and the whole treacherous world.
FAINALL Nay, this is extravagance. Come, I ask your pardon. No tears--I was to blame, I could not love you and be easy in my doubts. Pray forbear--I believe you; I'm convinced I've done you wrong; and any way, every way will make amends: I'll hate my wife yet more, damn her, I'll part with her, rob her of all she's worth, and we'll retire somewhere, anywhere, to another world; I'll marry thee--be pacified.--'Sdeath, they come: hide your face, your tears. You have a mask: wear it a moment. This way, this way: be persuaded.