On the present occasion Beatrice had not long to wait, and on Benedick’s making some jesting remark to Don Pedro and Leonato, she plunged into the fray.
“I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick; nobody marks you.”
“What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?” retorted Benedick.
“Is it possible that Disdain should die while she has such meet food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy herself must turn into disdain if you come into her presence.”
“Then is Courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none,” remarked Benedick in a lofty manner.
“That is very happy for women; they would otherwise have been troubled with a most annoying suitor,” said Beatrice. “Thank Heaven, I am like you in that respect; I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”
“Heaven keep your ladyship still in that mind!” said the young lord devoutly. “So some gentleman or another shall escape injury.”
It was all very well for Benedick to scoff at love, but the young Count Claudio was of a different nature. Impulsive and passionate, he was not ashamed to own his love for the lady Hero, and with the sympathetic help of the Prince of Arragon he speedily won the lady’s consent and her father’s approval. The wedding-day was fixed for a week later, and the only trial the impatient young lover had to endure was the time that must elapse before the marriage.
Benedick, of course, did not spare his raillery on this occasion, and he laughed with the utmost scorn when Don Pedro and Claudio declared that his own turn would come.