HOMEWARE: God-daughter,
This gentleman for you I have proposed
As husband.
ASTRAEA: Arden! we are lost.
ARDEN: Astraea!
Support him! Though I knew not his design,
It plants me in mid-heaven. Would it were
Not you, but I to bear the shock. My love!
We lost, you cry; you join me with you lost!
The truth leaps from your heart: and let it shine
To light us on our brilliant battle day
And victory
ASTRAEA: Who betrayed me!
HOMEWARE: Who betrayed?
Your voice, your eyes, your veil, your knife and fork;
Your tenfold worship of your widowhood;
As he who sees he must yield up the flag,
Hugs it oath-swearingly! straw-drowningly.
To be reasonable: you sent this gentleman
Referring him to me....
ASTRAEA: And that is false.
All’s false. You have conspired. I am disgraced.
But you will learn you have judged erroneously.
I am not the frail creature you conceive.
Between your vision of life’s aim, and theirs
Who presently will question me, I cling
To theirs as light: and yours I deem a den
Where souls can have no growth.
HOMEWARE: But when we touched
The point of hand-pressings, ‘twas rightly time
To think of wedding ties?
ASTRAEA: Arden, adieu!
(She rushes into house.)
SCENE VIII
ARDEN, HOMEWARE
ARDEN: Adieu! she said. With her that word is final.