“If I loved you as my master does, with such fire and suffering, I would find no sense in your denial,” said Viola. “I would not understand it.”
“Why, what would you do?”
“Make me a willow cabin at your gate, write loyal songs of love, and sing them loud, even in the dead of night,” cried Viola; “call out your name to the echoing hills, and make the babbling air cry out ‘Olivia!’ Oh, you should have no rest, but you should pity me!”
“You might do much,” said Olivia, with assumed sarcasm, but really touched by the young page’s enthusiasm. “What is your parentage?”
“Above my fortunes, yet my estate is good.”
“Get you to your lord; I cannot love him. Let him send no more—unless, perchance, you come to me again to tell me how he takes it. Fare you well; I thank you for your pains. Spend this for me.”
“I am no fee’d post, lady; keep your purse,” said Viola. “My master, not myself, lacks recompense. When your turn comes to love, may your own lover’s heart be made of flint, and may your affection, like my master’s, be held in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty!”
Viola had done her best for her master, but the only success she had was to win his lady’s heart for herself. The stately lady Olivia, so cold and proud to the noble Duke Orsino, was now forced to own to herself that she found a strange fascination in this young page. He had refused the gift of money which, in accordance with the custom of those times, Olivia had offered, but she could not let him pass out of her sight, perhaps for ever, without a remembrance.
“What ho! Malvolio!” she called.
“Here, madam, at your service.”