“Well, and am I never to laugh, who provide so many laughs for you all?”
“C'est juste. You shall share the general merriment. Imagine a romantic soul, who adores you for your simplicity!”
“My simplicity! Am I so very simple?”
“No,” said Sir Charles, monstrous dryly. “He says you are out of place on the stage, and wants to take the star from its firmament, and put it in a cottage.”
“I am not a star,” replied the Woffington, “I am only a meteor. And what does the man think I am to do without this (here she imitated applause) from my dear public's thousand hands?”
“You are to have this” (he mimicked a kiss) “from a single mouth, instead.”
“He is mad! Tell me what more he says. Oh, don't stop to invent; I should detect you; and you would only spoil this man.”
He laughed conceitedly. “I should spoil him! Well, then, he proposes to be your friend rather than your lover, and keep you from being talked of, he! he! instead of adding to your eclat.”
“And if he is your friend, why don't you tell him my real character, and send him into the country?”
She said this rapidly and with an appearance of earnest. The diplomatist fell into the trap.