ABSOLUTE Softly, softly; for though I am convinced my little Lydia would elope with me as Ensign Beverley, yet am I by no means certain that she would take me with the impediment of our friends' consent, a regular humdrum wedding, and the reversion of a good fortune on my side: no, no; I must prepare her gradually for the discovery, and make myself necessary to her, before I risk it.—Well, but Faulkland, you'll dine with us to-day at the hotel?
FAULKLAND
Indeed I cannot; I am not in spirits to be of such a party.
ABSOLUTE By heavens! I shall forswear your company. You are the most teasing, captious, incorrigible lover!—Do love like a man.
FAULKLAND
I own I am unfit for company.
ABSOLUTE Am I not a lover; ay, and a romantic one too? Yet do I carry every where with me such a confounded farrago of doubts, fears, hopes, wishes, and all the flimsy furniture of a country miss's brain!
FAULKLAND Ah! Jack, your heart and soul are not, like mine, fixed immutably on one only object. You throw for a large stake, but losing, you could stake and throw again;—but I have set my sum of happiness on this cast, and not to succeed, were to be stripped of all.
ABSOLUTE But, for heaven's sake! what grounds for apprehension can your whimsical brain conjure up at present?
FAULKLAND What grounds for apprehension, did you say? Heavens! are there not a thousand! I fear for her spirits—her health—her life!—My absence may fret her; her anxiety for my return, her fears for me may oppress her gentle temper: and for her health, does not every hour bring me cause to be alarmed? If it rains, some shower may even then have chilled her delicate frame! If the wind be keen, some rude blast may have affected her! The heat of noon, the dews of the evening, may endanger the life of her, for whom only I value mine. O Jack! when delicate and feeling souls are separated, there is not a feature in the sky, not a movement of the elements, not an aspiration of the breeze, but hints some cause for a lover's apprehension!
ABSOLUTE
Ay, but we may choose whether we will take the hint or not.—So, then,
Faulkland, if you were convinced that Julia were well and in spirits,
you would be entirely content?
FAULKLAND
I should be happy beyond measure—I am anxious only for that.