MRS. FRAMPTON
You speak my services too large.
KATHERINE
Nay, less;
For what an abject thing were life to me
Without your silence on my dreadful secret!
And I would wish the league we have renew'd
Might be perpetual—
MRS. FRAMPTON
Have a care, fine madam! [Aside.]
KATHERINE
That one house still might hold us. But my husband
Has shown himself of late—
MRS. FRAMPTON
How Mistress Selby?
KATHERINE
Not, not impatient. You misconstrue him.
He honours, and he loves, nay, he must love
The friend of his wife's youth. But there are moods
In which—
MRS. FRAMPTON
I understand you;—in which husbands,
And wives that love, may wish to be alone,
To nurse the tender fits of new-born dalliance,
After a five years' wedlock.
KATHERINE
Was that well
Or charitably put? do these pale cheeks
Proclaim a wanton blood? this wasting form
Seem a fit theatre for Levity
To play his love-tricks on; and act such follies,
As even in Affection's first bland Moon
Have less of grace than pardon in best wedlocks?
I was about to say, that there are times,
When the most frank and sociable man
May surfeit on most loved society,
Preferring loneness rather—
MRS. FRAMPTON
To my company—
KATHERINE
Ay, your's, or mine, or any one's. Nay, take
Not this unto yourself. Even in the newness
Of our first married loves 'twas sometimes so.
For solitude, I have heard my Selby say,
Is to the mind as rest to the corporal functions;
And he would call it oft, the day's soft sleep.