Here she stopped, expecting Glanville to give his opinion; who, strangely puzzled, replied at random, To be sure, madam, he was a very generous rival.
Rival! cried Arabella; Artaxerxes the rival of Oroondates! Why certainly you have lost your wits: he was Statira's brother; and it was to his mediation that Oroondates, or Orontes, owed his happiness.
Certainly, madam, replied Glanville, it was very generous in Artaxerxes, as he was brother to Statira, to interpose in behalf of an unfortunate lover; and both Oroondates and Orontes were extremely obliged to him.
Orontes, replied Arabella, was more obliged to him than Oroondates: since the quality of Orontes was infinitely below that of Oroondates.
But, madam, interrupted Glanville (extremely pleased at his having so well got over the difficulty he had been in), which of these two lovers did Statira make happy?
This unlucky question immediately informed Arabella, that she had been all this time the dupe of her cousin; who, if he had read a single page, would have known that Orontes and Oroondates was the same person; the name of Orontes being assumed by Oroondates to conceal his real name and quality.
The shame and rage she conceived at so glaring a proof of his disrespect, and the ridicule to which she had exposed herself, were so great, that she could not find words severe enough to express her resentment; but, protesting that no consideration whatever should oblige her to converse with him again, she ordered him instantly to quit her chamber; and assured him, if he ever attempted to approach her again, she would submit to the most terrible effects of her father's resentment, rather than be obliged to see a person who had, by his unworthy behaviour, made himself her scorn and aversion.
Glanville, who saw himself going to be discarded a second time, attempted, with great submission, to move her to recall her cruel sentence; but Arabella, bursting into tears, complained so pathetically of the cruelty of her destiny, in exposing her to the hated importunities of a man she despised, and whose presence was so insupportable, that Glanville, thinking it best to let her rage evaporate a little before he attempted to pacify her, quitted her chamber; cursing Statira and Orontes a thousand times, and loading the authors of those books with all the imprecations his rage could suggest.