Oliv. Ha! ha! ha! most doughty Don! pray, let us see you in your feather and doublet; as a Cavaleiro, it seems, you are formidable. So suddenly to rob your husband of his charmer's heart! you must have used some witchery.
Vict. Yes, powerful witchery—the knowledge of my sex. Oh! did the men but know us, as well as we do ourselves;—but, thank fate they do not—'twould be dangerous.
Oliv. What, I suppose, you praised her understanding, was captivated by her wit, and absolutely struck dumb by the amazing beauties of—her mind.
Vict. Oh, no,—that's the mode prescribed by the essayists on the female heart—ha! ha! ha!—Not a woman breathing, from fifteen to fifty, but would rather have a compliment to the tip of her ear, or the turn of her ancle, than a volume in praise of her intellects.
Oliv. So, flattery, then, is your boasted pill?
Vict. No, that's only the occasional gilding; but 'tis in vain to attempt a description of what changed its nature with every moment. I was now attentive—now gay—then tender, then careless. I strove rather to convince her that I was charming, than that I myself was charmed; and when I saw love's arrow quivering in her heart, instead of falling at her feet, sung a triumphant air, and remembered a sudden engagement.
Oliv. [Archly.] Would you have done so, had you been a man?
Vict. Assuredly—knowing what I now do as a woman.
Oliv. But can all this be worth while, merely to rival a fickle husband with one woman, whilst he is setting his feather, perhaps, at half a score others?
Vict. To rival him was not my first motive. The Portuguese robbed me of his heart; I concluded she had fascinations which nature had denied to me; it was impossible to visit her as a woman; I, therefore, assumed the Cavalier, to study her, that I might, if possible, be to my Carlos, all he found in her.