Cler. Sen. Well, Mr. Fainlove, how do you go on in your amour with my wife?
Fain. I am very civil and very distant; if she smiles or speaks, I bow and gaze at her; then throw down my eyes, as if oppressed by fear of offence, then steal a look again till she again sees me. This is my general method.
Cler. Sen. And it is right. For such a fine lady has no guard to her virtue but her pride; therefore you must constantly apply yourself to that. But, dear Lucy, as you have been a very faithful but a very costly wench to me, so my spouse also has been constant to my bed, but careless of my fortune.
Fain. Ah! my dear, how could you leave your poor Lucy, and run into France to see sights, and show your gallantry with a wife? Was not that unnatural?
Cler. Sen. She brought me a noble fortune, and I thought she had a right to share it; therefore carried her to see the world, forsooth, and make the tour of France and Italy, where she learned to lose her money gracefully, to admire every vanity in our sex, and contemn every virtue in her own, which, with ten thousand other perfections, are the ordinary improvements of a travelled lady. Now I can neither mortify her vanity, that I may live at ease with her, or quite discard her, till I have catched her a little enlarging her innocent freedoms, as she calls 'em. For this end I am content to be a French husband, though now and then with the secret pangs of an Italian one; and therefore, sir, or madam, you are thus equipped to attend and accost her ladyship. It concerns you to be diligent. If we wholly part—I need say no more. If we do not—I'll see thee well provided for.
Fain. I'll do all I can, I warrant you, but you are not to expect I'll go much among the men.
Cler. Sen. No, no; you must not go near men; you are only (when my wife goes to a play) to sit in a side box with pretty fellows. I don't design you to personate a real man, you are only to be a pretty gentleman; not to be of any use or consequence in the world, as to yourself, but merely as a property to others; such as you see now and then have a life in the entail of a great estate, that seem to have come into the world only to be tags in the pedigree of a wealthy house. You must have seen many of that species.
Fain. I apprehend you; such as stand in assemblies, with an indolent softness and contempt of all around them; who make a figure in public and are scorned in private; I have seen such a one with a pocket glass to see his own face, and an effective perspective to know others. [Imitates each.
Cler. Sen. Ay, ay, that's my man—thou dear rogue.