Love for Love: Scene XII.
Scene XII.
SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, MRS FORESIGHT, MRS FRAIL.
FORESIGHT
Ah, Sir Sampson, heav'n help your head. This is none of your
lucky hour; Nemo omnibus horis sapit. What, is he gone, and in
contempt of science? Ill stars and unconvertible ignorance attend
him.
SCANDAL
You must excuse his passion, Mr Foresight, for he has been
heartily vexed. His son is non compos mentis, and thereby incapable
of making any conveyance in law; so that all his measures are
disappointed.
FORESIGHT
Ha! say you so?
MRS FRAIL
What, has my sea-lover lost his anchor of hope, then?
[Aside to MRS FORESIGHT.]
MRS FORESIGHT
O sister, what will you do with him?
MRS FRAIL
Do with him? Send him to sea again in the next foul
weather. He's used to an inconstant element, and won't be surprised
to see the tide turned.
FORESIGHT
Wherein was I mistaken, not to foresee this? [Considers.]
SCANDAL
Madam, you and I can tell him something else that he did not
foresee, and more particularly relating to his own fortune. [Aside
to MRS FORESIGHT.]
MRS FORESIGHT
What do you mean? I don't understand you.
SCANDAL
Hush, softly,--the pleasures of last night, my dear, too
considerable to be forgot so soon.
MRS FORESIGHT
Last night! And what would your impudence infer from
last night? Last night was like the night before, I think.
SCANDAL
'Sdeath, do you make no difference between me and your
husband?
MRS FORESIGHT
Not much,--he's superstitious, and you are mad, in my
opinion.
SCANDAL
You make me mad. You are not serious. Pray recollect
yourself.
MRS FORESIGHT
Oh yes, now I remember, you were very impertinent and
impudent,--and would have come to bed to me.
SCANDAL
And did not?
MRS FORESIGHT
Did not! With that face can you ask the question?
SCANDAL
This I have heard of before, but never believed. I have been
told, she had that admirable quality of forgetting to a man's face
in the morning that she had lain with him all night, and denying
that she had done favours with more impudence than she could grant
'em. Madam, I'm your humble servant, and honour you.--You look
pretty well, Mr Foresight: how did you rest last night?
FORESIGHT
Truly, Mr Scandal, I was so taken up with broken dreams and
distracted visions that I remember little.
SCANDAL
'Twas a very forgetting night. But would you not talk with
Valentine? Perhaps you may understand him; I'm apt to believe there
is something mysterious in his discourses, and sometimes rather
think him inspired than mad.
FORESIGHT
You speak with singular good judgment, Mr Scandal, truly. I
am inclining to your Turkish opinion in this matter, and do
reverence a man whom the vulgar think mad. Let us go to him.
MRS FRAIL
Sister, do you stay with them; I'll find out my lover,
and give him his discharge, and come to you. O' my conscience, here
he comes.