FAULKLAND Well, well, I'll contain myself—perhaps as you say—for form sake.—What, Mr. Acres, you were praising Miss Melville's manner of dancing a minuet—hey?
ACRES Oh, I dare insure her for that—but what I was going to speak of was her country-dancing. Odds swimmings! she has such an air with her!
FAULKLAND Now disappointment on her!—Defend this, Absolute; why don't you defend this?—Country-dances! jigs and reels! am I to blame now? A minuet I could have forgiven—I should not have minded that—I say I should not have regarded a minuet—but country-dances!—Zounds! had she made one in a cotillion—I believe I could have forgiven even that—but to be monkey-led for a night!—to run the gauntlet through a string of amorous palming puppies!—to show paces like a managed filly!—Oh, Jack, there never can be but one man in the world whom a truly modest and delicate woman ought to pair with in a country-dance; and, even then, the rest of the couples should be her great-uncles and aunts!
ABSOLUTE
Ay, to be sure!—grandfathers and grandmothers!
FAULKLAND If there be but one vicious mind in the set, 'twill spread like a contagion—the action of their pulse beats to the lascivious movement of the jig—their quivering, warm-breathed sighs impregnate the very air—the atmosphere becomes electrical to love, and each amorous spark darts through every link of the chain!—I must leave you—I own I am somewhat flurried—and that confounded looby has perceived it. [Going.]
ABSOLUTE
Nay, but stay, Faulkland, and thank Mr. Acres for his good news.
FAULKLAND
Damn his news! [Exit.]
ABSOLUTE Ha! ha! ha! poor Faulkland five minutes since—"nothing on earth could give him a moment's uneasiness!"
ACRES
The gentleman wa'n't angry at my praising his mistress, was he?
ABSOLUTE
A little jealous, I believe, Bob.