Arabella
Sir, easy.
Albert You, too, my pretty, could earn some slaps. Shut up, if you please. To punish her audacity, I will drive her from my house. How do you like that?
Jenny (crying)
Just heaven, what a sentence. Sir—
Albert (adamant)
No, out of the nest, if you please.
Jenny (laughing) Ah, my word, sir, you flatter yourself if you think that leaving your sad company will make me suffer the least pang. A school boy leaving his tutor, a woman a long time celibate who leaves her relatives to get married—a slave who leaves the hands of his masters, an old prisoner who breaks his chains after thirty years, an heir who sees his uncle give up the ghost, a husband when the plague takes his plaguey wife—doesn't have half the pleasure I take in receiving from you this happy discharge.
Albert
Leaving me would please you?
Jenny
The greatest pleasure I will have in my life.
Albert Really! If that is so, I've changed my mind. I do not intend to give you this pleasure. You will stay here to do penance. And you will, without arguing, go in, and be diligent.
(Arabella reenters and curtsies. As Jenny starts to go, Albert stops her.)
Albert You stay—I wish to speak to you without witnesses. (aside) I'll have to butter her up—I need her services. (aloud) Come on—let's make peace and live sensibly. At bottom I love you—and more than you think.