You are a fortunate Man, Mr. Fainall.

FAINALL. Have we done?

MIRABELL. What you please. I'll play on to entertain you.

FAINALL. No, I'll give you your Revenge another time, when you are not so indifferent; you are thinking of something else now, and play too negligently; the Coldness of a losing Gamester lessens the Pleasure of the Winner: I'd no more play with a Man that slighted his ill Fortune, than I'd make Love to a Woman who undervalu'd the Loss of her Reputation.

MIRABELL. You have a Taste extreamly delicate, and are for refining on your Pleasures.

FAINALL. Prithee, why so reserv'd? Something has put you out of Humour.

MIRABELL. Not at all: I happen to be grave to day; and you are gay; that's all.

FAINALL. Confess, Millamant and you quarrell'd last Night, after I left you; my fair Cousin has some Humours, that wou'd tempt the patience of a Stoick. What, some Coxcomb came in, and was well receiv'd by her, while you were by.

MIRABELL. Witwoud and Petulant; and what was worse, her Aunt, your Wife's Mother, my evil Genius; or to sum up all in her own Name, my old Lady Wishfort came in. –

FAINALL. O there it is then –– She has a lasting Passion for you, and with Reason. – What, then my Wife was there?

MIRABELL. Yes, and Mrs. Marwood and three or four more, whom I never saw before; seeing me, they all put on their grave Faces, whisper'd one another; then complain'd aloud of the Vapours, and after fell into a profound Silence.

FAINALL. They had a mind to be rid of you.

MIRABELL. For which Reason I resolv'd not to stir. At last the good old Lady broke thro' her painful Taciturnity, with an Invective against long Visits. I would not have understood her, but Millamant joining in the Argument, I rose and with a constrain'd Smile told her, I thought nothing was so easie as to know when a Visit began to be troublesome; she redned and I withdrew, without expecting her Reply.

FAINALL. You were to blame to resent what she spoke only in Compliance with her Aunt.

MIRABELL. She is more Mistress of her self, than to be under the necessity of such a resignation.

FAINALL. What? tho' half her Fortune depends upon her marrying with my Lady's Approbation?

MIRABELL. I was then in such a Humour, that I shou'd have been better pleas'd if she had been less discreet.

FAINALL. Now I remember, I wonder not they were weary of you; last Night was one of their Cabal- nights; they have 'em three times a Week, and meet by turns, at one another's Apartments, where they come together like the Coroner's Inquest, to sit upon the murder'd Reputations of the Week. You and I are excluded; and it was once propos'd that all the Male Sex shou'd be excepted; but somebody mov'd that to avoid Scandal there might be one Man of the Community; upon which Motion Witwoud and Petulant were enroll'd Members.

MIRABELL. And who may have been the Foundress of this Sect? My Lady Wishfort, I warrant, who publishes her Detestation of Mankind; and full of the Vigour of Fifty five, declares for a Friend and Ratifia; and let Posterity shift for it self, she'll breed no more.

FAINALL. The discovery of your sham Addresses to her, to conceal your Love to her Niece, has provok'd this Separation: Had you dissembl'd better, Things might have continu'd in the state of Nature.

MIRABELL. I did as much as Man cou'd, with any reasonable Conscience; I proceeded to the very last Act of Flattery with her, and was guilty of a Song in her Commendation: Nay, I got a Friend to put her into a Lampoon, and complement her with the Imputation of an Affair with a young Fellow, which I carry'd so far, that I told her the malicious Town took notice that she was grown fat of a suddain; and when she lay in of a Dropsie, persuaded her she was reported to be in Labour.