Sir Fop. Are you women as fond of a vizard as we men are?

Har. I am very fond of a vizard that covers a face I do not like, sir.

Y. Bell. Here are no masks, you see, sir, but those which came with you; this was intended a private meeting, but because you look like a gentleman, if you discover yourself, and we know you to be such, you shall be welcome.

Sir Fop. [pulling off his mask]. Dear Bellair.

Med. Sir Fopling! how came you hither?

Sir Fop. Faith, I was coming late from Whitehall, after the King’s couché, one of my people told me he had heard fiddles at my Lady Townley’s, and—

Dor. You need not say any more, sir.

Sir Fop. Dorimant, let me kiss thee.

Dor. [whispers]. Hark you, Sir Fopling.

Sir Fop. Enough, enough—Courtage. A pretty kind of young woman that, Medley; I observed her in the Mall; more éveillée than our English women commonly are; prithee, what is she?

Med. The most noted coquette in town; beware of her.

Sir Fop. Let her be what she will, I know how to take my measures; in Paris the mode is to flatter the prude, laugh at the faux-prude, make serious love to the demi-prude, and only rally with the coquette. Medley, what think you?

Med. That for all this smattering of the mathematics, you may be out in your judgment at tennis.

Sir Fop. What a coq-à-l’âne is this! I talk of women, and thou answer’st tennis.

Med. Mistakes will be for want of apprehension.

Sir Fop. I am very glad of the acquaintance I have with this family.

Med. My lady truly is a good woman.

Sir Fop. Ah! Dorimant—Courtage I would say—would thou hadst spent the last winter in Paris with me. When thou wert there La Corneus and Sallyes were the only habitudes we had; a comedian would have been a bonne fortune. No stranger ever passed his time so well as I did some months before I came over. I was well received in a dozen families where all the women of quality used to visit; I have intrigues to tell thee more pleasant than ever thou read’st in a novel.

Har. Write ’em, sir, and oblige us women; our language wants such little stories.

Sir Fop. Writing, madam, is a mechanic part of wit; a gentleman should never go beyond a song or a billet.

Har. Bussy was a gentleman.

Sir Fop. Who, d’Ambois?

Med. Was there ever such a brisk blockhead?