Let me perish, madam, returned Glanville, if I would not die to please you, this moment!
It is not your death that I require, said she: and though you should never be able to justify yourself in my opinion, yet you might, haply, expiate your crime, by a less punishment than death.
What shall I do, then, my angelic cousin? resumed he.
Truly, said she, the sense of your offence ought so mortally to afflict you, that you should invent some strange kind of penance for yourself, severe enough to prove your penitence sincere.—You know, I suppose, what the unfortunate Orontes did, when he found he had wronged his adored Thalestris by an injurious suspicion.
I wish he had hanged himself! said Mr. Glanville, rising up in a passion, at seeing her again in her altitudes.
And why, pray, sir, said Arabella, are you so severe upon that poor prince; who was, haply, infinitely more innocent than yourself?
Severe, madam! said Glanville, fearing he had offended her: why, to be sure, he was a sad scoundrel to use his adored Thalestris as he did: and I think one cannot be too severe upon him.
But, returned Arabella, appearances were against her; and he had some shadow of reason for his jealousy and rage: then, you know, amidst all his transports, he could not be prevailed upon to draw his sword against her.
What did that signify? said Glanville: I suppose he scorned to draw his sword upon a woman: that would have been a shame indeed.
That woman, sir, resumed Arabella, was not such a contemptible antagonist as you think her: and men, as valiant, possibly, as Orontes (though, questionless, he was one of the most valiant men in the world) have been cut in pieces by the sword of that brave Amazon.