ACT V.
[SCENE I.]—An apartment at sir Willoughby Worret’s. Enter sir Willoughby and lady Worret.
Sir W. Lady Worret! lady Worret! I will have a reform. I am at last resolved to be master of my own house, and so let us come to a right understanding, and I dare say we shall be the better friends for it in future.
Lady W. You shall see, sir Willoughby, that I can change as suddenly as yourself. Though you have seen my delicate system deranged on slight occasions, you will find that in essential ones I have still spirit for resentment.
Sir W. I’ll have my house in future conducted as a gentleman’s should be, and I will no longer suffer my wife to make herself the object of ridicule to all her servants. So I’ll give up the folly of wishing to be thought a tender husband, for the real honour of being found a respectable one. I’ll make a glorious bonfire of all your musty collection of family receipt-books! and when I deliver up your keys to an honest housekeeper, I’ll keep one back of a snug apartment in which to deposit a rebellious wife.
Lady W. That will be indeed the way to make yourself respectable. I have found means to manage you for some years, and it will be my own fault if I don’t do so still.
Sir W. Surely I dream! what? have you managed me? Hey? Zounds! I never suspected that. Has sir Willoughby Worret been lead in leading-strings all this time? Death and forty devils, madam, have you presumed to manage me?
Lady W. Yes, sir; but you had better be silent on the subject, unless you mean to expose yourself to your daughter and all the world.
Sir W. Ay, Madam, with all my heart; my daughter and all the world shall know it.