The Comedies of William Congreve Part 9

SCENE VI.

ARAMINTA, BELINDA.

ARAM. So, this I expected. You won't oblige me, then, cousin, and let me have all the company to myself?

BELIN. No; upon deliberation, I have too much charity to trust you to yourself. The devil watches all opportunities; and in this favourable disposition of your mind, heaven knows how far you may be tempted: I am tender of your reputation.

ARAM. I am obliged to you. But who's malicious now, Belinda?

BELIN. Not I; witness my heart, I stay out of pure affection.

ARAM. In my conscience I believe you.

SCENE VII.

[_To them_] VAINLOVE, BELLMOUR, FOOTMAN.

BELL. So, fortune be praised! To find you both within, ladies, is--

ARAM. No miracle, I hope.

BELL. Not o' your side, madam, I confess. But my tyrant there and I, are two buckets that can never come together.

BELIN. Nor are ever like. Yet we often meet and clash.

BELL. How never like! marry, Hymen forbid. But this it is to run so extravagantly in debt; I have laid out such a world of love in your service, that you think you can never be able to pay me all. So shun me for the same reason that you would a dun.

BELIN. Ay, on my conscience, and the most impertinent and troublesome of duns--a dun for money will be quiet, when he sees his debtor has not wherewithal. But a dun for love is an eternal torment that never rests--

BELL. Until he has created love where there was none, and then gets it for his pains. For importunity in love, like importunity at Court, first creates its own interest and then pursues it for the favour.

ARAM. Favours that are got by impudence and importunity, are like discoveries from the rack, when the afflicted person, for his ease, sometimes confesses secrets his heart knows nothing of.

VAIN. I should rather think favours, so gained, to be due rewards to indefatigable devotion. For as love is a deity, he must be served by prayer.

BELIN. O Gad, would you would all pray to love, then, and let us alone.

VAIN. You are the temples of love, and 'tis through you, our devotion must be conveyed.

ARAM. Rather poor silly idols of your own making, which upon the least displeasure you forsake and set up new. Every man now changes his mistress and his religion as his humour varies, or his interest.

VAIN. O madam--

ARAM. Nay, come, I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull. If my music-master be not gone, I'll entertain you with a new song, which comes pretty near my own opinion of love and your s.e.x. Who's there? Is Mr. Gavot gone? [_Calls_.]

FOOT. Only to the next door, madam. I'll call him.

SCENE VIII.

ARAMINTA, BELINDA, VAINLOVE, _and_ BELLMOUR.

BELL. Why, you won't hear me with patience.

ARAM. What's the matter, cousin?

BELL. Nothing, madam, only--

BELIN. Prithee hold thy tongue. Lard, he has so pestered me with flames and stuff, I think I sha'n't endure the sight of a fire this twelvemonth.

BELL. Yet all can't melt that cruel frozen heart.

BELIN. O Gad, I hate your hideous fancy--you said that once before--if you must talk impertinently, for Heaven's sake let it be with variety; don't come always, like the devil, wrapt in flames. I'll not hear a sentence more, that begins with an 'I burn'--or an 'I beseech you, madam.'

BELL. But tell me how you would be adored. I am very tractable.

BELIN. Then know, I would be adored in silence.

BELL. Humph, I thought so, that you might have all the talk to yourself.

You had better let me speak; for if my thoughts fly to any pitch, I shall make villainous signs.

BELIN. What will you get by that; to make such signs as I won't understand?

BELL. Ay, but if I'm tongue-tied, I must have all my actions free to--quicken your apprehension--and I--gad let me tell you, my most prevailing argument is expressed in dumb show.

SCENE IX.

[_To them_] MUSIC-MASTER.

ARAM. Oh, I am glad we shall have a song to divert the discourse. Pray oblige us with the last new song.

SONG.

I.

Thus to a ripe, consenting maid, Poor, old, repenting Delia said, Would you long preserve your lover?

Would you still his G.o.ddess reign?

Never let him all discover, Never let him much obtain.

II.

Men will admire, adore and die, While wishing at your feet they lie: But admitting their embraces, Wakes 'em from the golden dream; Nothing's new besides our faces, Every woman is the same.