Sylv. Faugh! this is love! this is the blessing of matrimony!
L. Dunce. Rail not so unreasonably against love, Sylvia. As I have dealt freely, and acknowledged to thee the passion I have for Beaugard, so methinks Sylvia need not conceal her good thoughts of her friend. Do not I know Courtine sticks in your stomach?
Sylv. If he does, I'll assure you he shall never get to my heart. But can you have the conscience to love another man now you are married? What do you think will become of you?
L. Dunce. I tell thee, Sylvia, I was never married to that engine we have been talking of; my parents indeed made me say something to him after a priest once, but my heart went not along with my tongue; I minded not what it was: for my thoughts, Sylvia, for these seven years, have been much better employed—Beaugard! Ah, curse on the day that first sent him into France!
Sylv. Why so, I beseech you?
L. Dunce. Had he stayed here, I had not been sacrificed to the arms of this monument of man, for the bed of death could not be more cold than his has been: he would have delivered me from the monster, for even then I loved him, and was apt to think my kindness not neglected.
Sylv. I find indeed your ladyship had good thoughts of him.
L. Dunce. Surely 'tis impossible to think too well of him, for he has wit enough to call his good-nature in question, and yet good-nature enough to make his wit suspected.
Sylv. But how do you hope ever to get sight of him? Sir Davy's watchfulness is invincible. I dare swear he would smell out a rival if he were in the house, only by natural instinct; as some that always sweat when a cat's in the room. Then again, Beaugard's a soldier, and that's a thing the old gentleman, you know, loves dearly.
L. Dunce. There lies the greatest comfort of my uneasy life; he is one of those fools, forsooth, that are led by the nose by knaves to rail against the king and the government, and is mightily fond of being thought of a party. I have had hopes this twelve-month to have heard of his being in the Gatehouse[33] for treason.