SCENE XXI.
Valentine, Jeremy.
VAL. From a riddle you can expect nothing but a riddle. There’s my instruction and the moral of my lesson.
JERE. What, is the lady gone again, sir? I hope you understood one another before she went?
VAL. Understood! She is harder to be understood than a piece of Egyptian antiquity or an Irish manuscript: you may pore till you spoil your eyes and not improve your knowledge.
JERE. I have heard ’em say, sir, they read hard Hebrew books backwards; maybe you begin to read at the wrong end.
VAL. They say so of a witch’s prayer, and dreams and Dutch almanacs are to be understood by contraries. But there’s regularity and method in that; she is a medal without a reverse or inscription, for indifference has both sides alike. Yet, while she does not seem to hate me, I will pursue her, and know her if it be possible, in spite of the opinion of my satirical friend, Scandal, who says—
That women are like tricks by sleight of hand,
Which, to admire, we should not understand.