Pala. I'll be hanged then, if the same party, who gave you intelligence I was here, did not tell your wife you would come hither. Now I smell the malice on't on both sides.
Dor. Was it so, think you? nay, then, I'll confess my part of the malice too. As soon as ever I spied my husband and Melantha come together, I had a strange temptation to make him jealous in revenge; and that made me call Palamede, Palamede! as though there had been an intrigue between us.
Mel. Nay, I avow, there was an appearance of an intrigue between us too.
Pala. To see how things will come about!
Rho. And was it only thus, my dear Doralice? [Embrace.
Dor. And did I wrong n'own Rhodophil, with a false suspicion? [Embracing him.
Pala. [Aside.] Now I am confident we had all four the same design: 'Tis a pretty odd kind of game this, where each of us plays for double stakes: This is just thrust and parry with the same motion; I am to get his wife, and yet to guard my own mistress. But I am vilely suspicious, that, while I conquer in the right wing, I shall be routed in the left; for both our women will certainly betray their party, because they are each of them for gaining of two, as well as we; and I much fear.
If their necessities and ours were known,
They have more need of two, than we of one. [Exeunt, embracing one another.
ACT IV. SCENE I.
Enter Leonidas, musing; Amalthea, following him.
Amal. Yonder he is; and I must speak or die;
And yet 'tis death to speak: yet he must know
I have a passion for him, and may know it
With a less blush; because to offer it
To his low fortunes, shows I loved before,
His person, not his greatness.