Myrt. I think we have of late changed complexions. You, who used to be much the graver man, are now all air in your behaviour.—But the cause of my concern may, for aught I know, be the same object that gives you all this satisfaction. In a word, I am told that you are this very day—and your dress confirms me in it—to be married to Lucinda.
Bev. Jun. You are not misinformed.—Nay, put not on the terrors of a rival till you hear me out. I shall disoblige the best of fathers if I don't seem ready to marry Lucinda; and you know I have ever told you you might make use of my secret resolution never to marry her for your own service as you please; but I am now driven to the extremity of immediately refusing or complying unless you help me to escape the match.
Myrt. Escape? Sir, neither her merit or her fortune are below your acceptance—Escaping do you call it?
Bev. Jun. Dear sir, do you wish I should desire the match?
Myrt. No; but such is my humorous and sickly state of mind since it has been able to relish nothing but Lucinda, that though I must owe my happiness to your aversion to this marriage, I can't bear to hear her spoken of with levity or unconcern.
Bev. Jun. Pardon me, sir, I shall transgress that way no more. She has understanding, beauty, shape, complexion, wit——
Myrt. Nay, dear Bevil, don't speak of her as if you loved her neither.
Bev. Jun. Why, then, to give you ease at once, though I allow Lucinda to have good sense, wit, beauty, and virtue, I know another in whom these qualities appear to me more amiable than in her.
Myrt. There you spoke like a reasonable and good-natured friend. When you acknowledge her merit, and own your prepossession for another, at once you gratify my fondness and cure my jealousy.
Bev. Jun. But all this while you take no notice, you have no apprehension, of another man that has twice the fortune of either of us.