Scene XIII.

Love for Love

by William Congreve

VALENTINE, SCANDAL, TATTLE.

TATTLE
I'll be gone.

VALENTINE
You'll meet her.

TATTLE
Is there not a back way?

VALENTINE
If there were, you have more discretion than to
give Scandal such an advantage. Why, your running away will prove
all that he can tell her.

TATTLE
Scandal, you will not be so ungenerous. Oh, I shall
lose my reputation of secrecy for ever. I shall never be received
but upon public days, and my visits will never be admitted beyond a
drawing- room. I shall never see a bed-chamber again, never be
locked in a closet, nor run behind a screen, or under a table: never
be distinguished among the waiting-women by the name of trusty Mr
Tattle more. You will not be so cruel?

VALENTINE
Scandal, have pity on him; he'll yield to any
conditions.

TATTLE
Any, any terms.

SCANDAL
Come, then, sacrifice half a dozen women of good
reputation to me presently. Come, where are you familiar? And see
that they are women of quality, too--the first quality.

TATTLE
'Tis very hard. Won't a baronet's lady pass?

SCANDAL
No, nothing under a right honourable.

TATTLE
Oh, inhuman! You don't expect their names?

SCANDAL
No, their titles shall serve.

TATTLE
Alas, that's the same thing. Pray spare me their
titles. I'll describe their persons.

SCANDAL
Well, begin then; but take notice, if you are so ill
a painter that I cannot know the person by your picture of her, you
must be condemned, like other bad painters, to write the name at the
bottom.

TATTLE
Well, first then -