Lure. Yes, Sir; ’tis an affront to any woman to hear another commended; and I will resent it.—In short, Sir Harry, your wife was a—
Wild. Buz, Madam—no detraction! I’ll tell you what she was. So much an angel in her conduct, that though I saw another in her arms, I should have thought the devil had rais’d the phantom, and my more conscious reason had given my eyes the lie.
Lure. Very well! Then I a’n’t to be believ’d, it seems. But, d’ye hear, Sir?
Wild. Nay, Madam, do you hear! I tell you, ’tis not in the power of malice to cast a blot upon her fame; and though the vanity of our sex, and the envy of yours, conspir’d both against her honour, I would not hear a syllable.
[Stopping his ears.
Lure. Why then, as I hope to breathe, you shall hear it. The picture! the picture! the picture!
[Bawling aloud.
Wild. Ran, tan, tan. A pistol-bullet from ear to ear.
Lure. That picture which you had just now from the French marquis for a thousand pound; that very picture did your very virtuous wife send to the marquis as a pledge of her very virtuous and dying affection. So that you are both robb’d of your honour, and cheated of your money.
[Aloud.