Miss Mac. That is a question, sir, that no woman can ever pardon being put to her. Your other insulting queries I replied to at once, and rather admired the brutal spirit that prompted them, than felt annoyed at their utter want of feeling. But to ask a woman her age! ’Tis a sin, sir—’tis giving encouragement to lying; for a man is assured, when he puts that question, he can never be told the truth.
Dam. Ha! ha! This is delicious—this is a foretaste of my approaching bliss—this is a gleam of the light of happiness that is in future to shine full upon me. Oh!—what it’s your weak side, eh? I’m delighted to have discovered it—when we are married I’ll ask the question every night and morning during our bitter honey-moon.
Miss Mac. You shall be disappointed, sir; we are not yet man and wife—I knew you to be a brute; but I never thought you a fool—and the latter character is one that I rather pity than despise. To pity you would be to admit a feeling akin to love, and any approach to love for you, would be to admit an affection for a bear, or a rhinoceros, or any other monstrosity of nature. No, sir! I have now done with you—find some other female to worry—Miss Maria Macaw leaves you to your single blessedness.
[Exit F.E.L.
Dam. Is she in earnest now, or is this some little specimen of antique coquetry? After having made up my mind to make a woman miserable, I should not like to be disappointed: I had set my heart upon worrying a wife to death—to have some one to vent all my ill-humours upon—to snarl at—to find fault with—to be angry when she was pleased, and pleased only when she was angry—and to thwart and vex continually—I should have revelled in such a life, and have been delighted in letting every one see what a wretched state is the married one. She can’t mean it—Oh, no—no—’tis but one of the coquettish arts of her artful sex—I’ll retaliate—I’ll call upon Miss Skylark or some other woman, and take her on my arm to this party, to-night—I’ll be a coquette—a male coquette—and fight her with her own weapons.
Re-enter CHESTER; he paces the stage, DAMPER following him. Crosses to R.
Che. Oh! the perversity of womankind: I thought she would have been surprised and delighted at the intelligence that I had wooed and won her under a false appearance, that instead of a struggling life of poverty, I could offer her one of wealth and comfort, and that my reason for such concealment was, that I might find one who would love me for myself alone. Why should she be angry? Why should she hear me with such indignation? Oh! woman—woman!
Dam. A diabolical sex, isn’t it, sir? I always said so—nobody would believe me—no one heeded my words—but now you’ll be a proselyte to creed, wont you?
Che. I’ll go to the manor house——