ABSOLUTE
Or, Go, gentle gales! [Sings.]
ACRES Oh, no! nothing like it. Odds! now I recollect one of them—My heart's my own, my will is free. [Sings.]
FAULKLAND Fool! fool that I am! to fix all my happiness on such a trifler! 'Sdeath! to make herself the pipe and ballad-monger of a circle! to soothe her light heart with catches and glees!—What can you say to this, sir?
ABSOLUTE
Why, that I should be glad to hear my mistress had been so merry, sir.
FAULKLAND Nay, nay, nay—I'm not sorry that she has been happy—no, no, I am glad of that—I would not have had her sad or sick—yet surely a sympathetic heart would have shown itself even in the choice of a song—she might have been temperately healthy, and somehow, plaintively gay;—but she has been dancing too, I doubt not!
ACRES
What does the gentleman say about dancing?
ABSOLUTE
He says the lady we speak of dances as well as she sings.
ACRES
Ay, truly, does she—there was at our last race ball——
FAULKLAND Hell and the devil! There!—there—I told you so! I told you so! Oh! she thrives in my absence!—Dancing! but her whole feelings have been in opposition with mine;—I have been anxious, silent, pensive, sedentary—my days have been hours of care, my nights of watchfulness.—She has been all health! spirit! laugh! song! dance!—Oh! damned, damned levity!
ABSOLUTE For Heaven's sake, Faulkland, don't expose yourself so!—Suppose she has danced, what then?—does not the ceremony of society often oblige ——