SCENE III.
Enter Maskall, Jacintha, and Beatrix.
Mask. But, madam, do you take me for a man of honour?
Jac. No.
Mask. Why there's it! if you had, I would have sworn that my master has neither done nor intended you any injury. I suppose you'll grant he knew you in your disguise?
Beat. Nay, to know her, and use her so, is an aggravation of his crime.
Mask. Unconscionable Beatrix! would you two have all the carnival to yourselves? He knew you, madam, and was resolved to countermine you in all your plots. But, when he saw you so much piqued, he was too good natured to let you sleep in wrath, and sent me to you to disabuse you: for, if the business had gone on till to-morrow, when Lent begins, you would have grown so peevish (as all good Catholics are with fasting) that the quarrel would never have been ended.
Jac. Well; this mollifies a little: I am content he shall see me.
Mask. But that you may be sure he knew you, he will bring the certificate of the purse along with him.
Jac. I shall be glad to find him innocent.
Enter Wildblood, at the other end of the stage.
Wild. No mortal man ever threw out so often. It could not be me, it must be the devil that did it: He took all the chances, and changed them after I had thrown them. But, I'll be even with him; for, I'll never throw one of his dice more.
Mask. Madam, 'tis certainly my master; and he is so zealous to make his peace, that he could not stay till I called him to you.——Sir.
Wild. Sirrah, I'll teach you more manners than to leave me another time: You rogue, you have lost me two hundred pistoles, you and the devil your accomplice; you, by leaving me to myself, and he, by tempting me to play it off.
Mask. Is the wind in that door? Here's like to be fine doings.
Wild. O mischief! am I fallen into her ambush? I must face it out with another quarrel.
[Aside.
Jac. Your man has been treating your accommodation; 'tis half made already.
Wild. Ay, on your part it may be.
Jac. He says you knew me.
Wild. Yes; I do know you so well, that my poor heart aches for't. I was going to bed without telling you my mind; but, upon consideration, I am come——
Jac. To bring the money with you.
Wild. To declare my grievances, which are great and many.
Mask. Well, for impudence, let thee alone.
Wild. As, in the first place——
Jac. I'll hear no grievances; where's the money?
Beat. Ay, keep to that, madam.
Wild. Do you think me a person to be so used?
Jac. We will not quarrel; where's the money?
Wild. By your favour we will quarrel.
Beat. Money, money!——
Wild. I am angry, and can hear nothing.
Beat. Money, money, money, money!
Wild. Do you think it a reasonable thing to put on two disguises in a night, to tempt a man? (Help me, Maskall, for I want arguments abominably.) I thank heaven I was never so barbarously used in all my life.
Jac. He begins to anger me in good earnest.
Mask. A thing so much against the rules of modesty! So indecent a thing!
Wild. Ay so indecent a thing: Nay, now I do not wonder at myself for being angry. And then to wonder I should love her in those disguises! To quarrel at the natural desires of human kind, assaulted by powerful temptations; I am enraged at that.
Jac. Heyday! you had best quarrel too for my bringing you the money.
Wild. I have a grudging to you for't: (Maskall, the money, Maskall! now help, or we are gone.)
Mask. Would she offer to bring money to you? first, to affront your poverty——
Wild. Ay, to affront my poverty: But that's no great matter; and then——
Mask. And then to bring you money, sir. (I stick fast, sir.)
Wild. (Forward, you dog, and invent, or I'll cut your throat.) And then, as I was saying, to bring me money——
Mask. Which is the greatest and most sweet of all temptations; and to think you could resist it: Being also aggravated by her handsomeness, who brought it.
Wild. Resist it? No; I would she would understand it; I know better what belongs to flesh and blood than so.
Beat. to Jac. This is plain confederacy: I smoke it; he came on purpose to quarrel with you; break first with him, and prevent it.
Jac. If it be come to that once, the devil take the hindmost! I'll not be last in love, for that will be a dishonour to my sex.
Wild. And then——
Jac. Hold, sir, there needs no more; you shall fall out, and I'll gratify you with a new occasion: I only tried you in hope you would be false; and, rather than fail of my design, brought gold to bribe you to't.
Beat. As people, when they have an ill bargain, are content to lose by it, that they may get it off their hands.
Mask. Beatrix, while our principals are engaged, I hold it not for our honour to stand idle.
Beat. With all my heart: Please you let us draw off to some other ground.
Mask. I dare meet you on any spot, but one.
Wild. I think we shall do well to put it to an issue: this is the last time you shall ever be troubled with my addresses.
Jac. The favour had been greater to have spared this too.
Mask. Beatrix, let us dispatch; or they'll break off before us.
Beat. Break as fast as thou wilt; I am as brittle as thou art, for thy heart.
Wild. Because I will absolutely break off with you, I will keep nothing that belongs to you; therefore take back your picture, and your handkerchief.
Jac. I have nothing of yours to keep; therefore take back your liberal promises. Take them in imagination.
Wild. Not to be behindhand with you in your frumps, I give you back your purse of gold: Take you that—in imagination.
Jac. To conclude with you, take back your oaths and protestations; they are never the worse for the wearing, I assure you: Therefore take them, spick and span new, for the use of your next mistress.
Mask. Beatrix, follow your leader; here's the six-penny whittle you gave me, with the mutton haft: I can spare it, for knives are of little use in Spain.
Beat. There's your scissars with the stinking brass chain to them: 'Tis well there was no love betwixt us; for they had been too dull to cut it.
Mask. There's the dandriff comb you lent me.
Beat. There's your ferret-ribbanding for garters.
Mask. I would never have come so near as to have taken them from you.
Beat. For your letter, I have it not about me; but upon reputation I'll burn it.
Mask. And for yours, I have already put it to a fitting employment.—Courage, sir; how goes the battle on your wing?
Wild. Just drawing off on both sides. Adieu, Spain.
Jac. Farewell, old England.
Beat. Come away in triumph; the day's your own, madam.
Mask. I'll bear you off upon my shoulders, sir; we have broke their hearts.
Wild. Let her go first then; I'll stay, and keep the honour of the field.
Jac. I'll not retreat, if you stay till midnight.
Wild. Are you sure then we have done loving?
Jac. Yes, very sure; I think so.
Wild. 'Tis well you are so; for otherwise I feel my stomach a little maukish. I should have doubted another fit of love were coming up.
Jac. No, no; your inconstancy secures you enough for that.
Wild. That's it which makes me fear my own returning: Nothing vexes me, but that you should part with me so slightly, as though I were not worth your keeping. Well, 'tis a sign you never loved me.
Jac. 'Tis the least of your care whether I did or did not: It may be it had been more for the quiet of myself, if I—but 'tis no matter, I'll not give you that satisfaction.
Wild. But what's the reason you will not give it me?
Jac. For the reason that we are quite broke off.
Wild. Why, are we quite, quite broke off?
Jac. Why, are we not?
Wild. Well, since 'tis past, 'tis past; but a pox of all foolish quarrelling, for my part.
Jac. And a mischief of all foolish disguisements, for my part.
Wild. But if it were to do again with another mistress, I would even plainly confess I had lost my money.
Jac. And if I had to deal with another servant, I would learn more wit than to tempt him in disguises: for that's to throw a Venice-glass to the ground, to try if it would not break.
Wild. If it were not to please you, I see no necessity of our parting.
Jac. I protest, I do it only out of complaisance to you.
Wild. But if I should play the fool, and ask your pardon, you would refuse it.
Jac. No, never submit; for I should spoil you again with pardoning you.
Mask. Do you hear this, Beatrix! They are just upon the point of accommodation; we must make haste, or they'll make a peace by themselves, and exclude us from the treaty.
Beat. Declare yourself the aggressor then, and I'll take you into mercy.
Wild. The worst that you can say of me is, that I have loved you thrice over.
Jac. The prime articles between Spain and England are sealed; for the rest, concerning a more strict alliance, if you please, we'll dispute them in the garden.
Wild. But, in the first place, let us agree on the article of navigation, I beseech you.
Beat. These leagues, offensive and defensive, will be too strict for us, Maskall: A treaty of commerce will serve our turn.
Mask. With all my heart; and when our loves are veering, We'll make no words, but fall to privateering.
[Exeunt, the men leading the women.