“Plead you to me, fair dame? I do not know you,” answered the bewildered Antipholus. “I have only been in Ephesus two hours; I am as strange to your town as to your talk; I cannot understand one word of what you say.”
“Fie, brother, how the world is changed with you!” said Luciana. “When were you wont to treat my sister thus? She sent a message by Dromio to tell you to come home to dinner.”
“By Dromio?” said Antipholus.
“By me?” echoed Dromio, who, of course, was not the one she had sent.
“By thee,” retorted Adriana; and she repeated the answer her own servant had brought back.
Antipholus began to think he must be dreaming, and had been married to Adriana in his sleep; but when both the ladies insisted on his going back with them to dinner, he allowed himself to be persuaded, and determined to see what would be the end of this strange adventure.
As for Dromio, he was told to act porter at the gate, and to let no one enter unless he wanted another beating.
Confusion worse Confounded
Dromio of Ephesus, who for the second time had been sent in search of his master, at last found him. Antipholus of Ephesus had been detained at the shop of a goldsmith, Angelo, who was making a chain for his wife. The chain was not yet completed, but was promised for a little later. Antipholus returned home, bringing with him as guests the goldsmith Angelo and a merchant called Balthazar, but when they reached the house they were refused admittance. No argument or entreaty would induce the porter or the servants inside to open the door. They said their master and Dromio were already at home, and that these must be impostors. Antipholus at last went away in a rage, saying that he would go and dine somewhere else, where he was treated with less disdain.
Meanwhile, inside the house, Luciana was not at all pleased with the way her supposed brother-in-law was behaving to his wife, and when they found themselves alone, she took him to task about it. Antipholus of Syracuse again persisted that Adriana was no wife of his; in fact, he said, he very much preferred Luciana herself. Luciana did not think it right to listen to such speeches, and went off to fetch her sister, leaving Antipholus more than ever charmed with her gentle grace, enchanting beauty, and wise discourse.