Wal. They to each other company enough!
I, company for no one but myself.
I’ll take my leave, nor trouble them to pay
The compliments of parting. Lydia! Lydia!
[Goes out.]
W. Green. What’s here? “Eliza!” So it was a lady!—
How wondrously does Master Waller bear it!
He surely will not hold much longer out.—[Aside.]
Sir William! Nay, look up! What cause to cast
Your eyes upon the ground? What an it were
A lady?
Sir Wil. You’re not angry?
W. Green. No!
Sir Wil. She is.
I’ll take the tone she speaks in ’gainst the word,
For fifty crowns.—I have not told you all
About the ring; though I would sooner die
Than play the braggart!—yet, as truth is truth,
And told by halves, may from a simple thing,
By misconstruction, to a monster grow,
I’ll tell the whole truth!
W. Green. Dear Sir William, do!
Sir Wil. The lady was a maid, and very young;
Nor there in justice to her must I stop,
But say that she was beautiful as young;
And add to that that she was learned too,
Almost enough to win for her that title,
Our sex, in poor conceit of their own merits,
And narrow spirit of monopoly,
And jealousy, which gallantry eschews,
Do give to women who assert their right
To minds as well as we.
W. Green. What! a blue-stocking?
Sir Wil. I see—she’ll come to calling names at last.—[Aside.]
I should offend myself to quote the term.
But, to return, for yet I have not done;
And further yet may go, then progress on
That she was young, that she was beautiful.
A wit and learned are naught to what’s to come—
She had a heart!—