Con. Very well, sir, an admirable composition truly!

Heart. Then for her outside, I consider it merely as an outside: she has a thin, tiffany covering; just over such stuff as you and I are made of. As for her motion, her mien, her airs, and all those tricks, I know they affect you mightily. If you should see your mistress at a coronation, dragging her peacock’s train, with all her state and insolence about her, ’twould strike you with all the awful thoughts that heaven itself could pretend to form you: whereas, I turn the whole matter into a jest, and suppose her strutting, in the self-same stately manner, with nothing on but her stays, and her scanty quilted under-petticoat.

Con. Hold thy profane tongue; for I’ll hear no more.

Heart. What, you’ll love on, then?

Con. Yes.

Heart. Yet have no hopes at all.

Con. None.

Heart. Nay, the resolution may be discreet enough: perhaps you have found out some new philosophy; that love, like virtue, is its own reward: so you and your mistress will be as well content at a distance, as others that have less learning are in coming together.

Con. No; but if she should prove kind at last, my dear Heartfree—

[Embracing him.

Heart. Nay, pr’ythee, don’t take me for your mistress; for lovers are very troublesome.

Con. Well, who knows what time may do?

Heart. And just now he was sure that time could do nothing.

Con. Yet not one kind glance in two years is somewhat strange.

Heart. Not strange at all; she don’t like you, that’s all the business.

Con. Pr’ythee, don’t distract me.

Heart. Nay, you are a good, handsome, young fellow, she might use you better. Come, will you go see her? perhaps she may have changed her mind; there’s some hopes, as long as she’s a woman.

Con. Oh! ’tis in vain to visit her: sometimes, to get a sight of her, I visit that beast her husband; but she certainly finds some pretence to quit the room as soon as I enter.

Heart. It’s much she don’t tell him you have made love to her, too; for that’s another good-natured thing usual amongst women, in which they have several ends. Sometimes ’tis to recommend their virtue, that they may be kind with the greater security. Sometimes ’tis to make their husbands fight, in hopes they may be killed, when their affairs require it should be so: but, most commonly, ’tis to engage two men in a quarrel, that they may have the credit of being fought for; and if the lover’s killed in the business, they cry, “Poor fellow, he had ill-luck;” and so they go to cards.

Con. Thy injuries to women are not to be forgiven. Look to’t, if ever you fall into their hands—

Heart. They can’t use me worse than they do you, that speak well of them. Oho! here comes the knight!

Enter Sir JOHN BRUTE. Your humble servant, Sir John.