MRS. MAR. Indeed, Mrs. Engine, is it thus with you? Are you become a go-between of this importance? Yes, I shall watch you. Why this wench is the passe-partout, a very master-key to everybody’s strong box. My friend Fainall, have you carried it so swimmingly? I thought there was something in it; but it seems it’s over with you. Your loathing is not from a want of appetite then, but from a surfeit. Else you could never be so cool to fall from a principal to be an assistant, to procure for him! A pattern of generosity, that I confess. Well, Mr. Fainall, you have met with your match.—O man, man! Woman, woman! The devil’s an ass: if I were a painter, I would draw him like an idiot, a driveller with a bib and bells. Man should have his head and horns, and woman the rest of him. Poor, simple fiend! ‘Madam Marwood has a month’s mind, but he can’t abide her.’ ’Twere better for him you had not been his confessor in that affair, without you could have kept his counsel closer. I shall not prove another pattern of generosity; he has not obliged me to that with those excesses of himself, and now I’ll have none of him. Here comes the good lady, panting ripe, with a heart full of hope, and a head full of care, like any chymist upon the day of projection.
SCENE VIII.
[To her] Lady Wishfort.
LADY. O dear Marwood, what shall I say for this rude forgetfulness? But my dear friend is all goodness.
MRS. MAR. No apologies, dear madam. I have been very well entertained.
LADY. As I’m a person, I am in a very chaos to think I should so forget myself. But I have such an olio of affairs, really I know not what to do. [Calls.] Foible!—I expect my nephew Sir Wilfull ev’ry moment too.—Why, Foible!—He means to travel for improvement.
MRS. MAR. Methinks Sir Wilfull should rather think of marrying than travelling at his years. I hear he is turned of forty.
LADY. Oh, he’s in less danger of being spoiled by his travels. I am against my nephew’s marrying too young. It will be time enough when he comes back, and has acquired discretion to choose for himself.
MRS. MAR. Methinks Mrs. Millamant and he would make a very fit match. He may travel afterwards. ’Tis a thing very usual with young gentlemen.
LADY. I promise you I have thought on’t—and since ’tis your judgment, I’ll think on’t again. I assure you I will; I value your judgment extremely. On my word, I’ll propose it.