Scene I.

The Way of the World

by William Congreve

A Chocolate-house.

MIRABELL and FAINALL rising from cards. BETTY waiting.

MIRABELL
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
undervalued the loss of her reputation.

MIRABELL
You have a taste extremely delicate, and are for
refining on your pleasures.

FAINALL
Prithee, why so reserved? 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 quarrelled last night,
after I left you; my fair cousin has some humours that would tempt
the patience of a Stoic. What, some coxcomb came in, and was well
received 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
Oh, 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,
whispered one another, then complained 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 resolved not to stir. At last
the good old lady broke through 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 constrained
smile told her, I thought nothing was so easy as to know when a visit
began to be troublesome; she reddened 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 herself than to be under
the necessity of such a resignation.

FAINALL
What? though half her fortune depends upon her
marrying with my lady's approbation?

MIRABELL
I was then in such a humour, that I should have
been better pleased 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 murdered
reputations of the week. You and I are excluded, and it was once
proposed that all the male sex should be excepted; but somebody moved
that to avoid scandal there might be one man of the community, upon
which motion Witwoud and Petulant were enrolled 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 ratafia; and let posterity shift for itself, she'll breed no
more.

FAINALL
The discovery of your sham addresses to her, to
conceal your love to her niece, has provoked this separation. Had
you dissembled better, things might have continued in the state of
nature.

MIRABELL
I did as much as man could, 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 compliment her with the imputation of an
affair with a young fellow, which I carried so far, that I told her
the malicious town took notice that she was grown fat of a sudden;
and when she lay in of a dropsy, persuaded her she was reported to be
in labour. The devil's in't, if an old woman is to be flattered
further, unless a man should endeavour downright personally to
debauch her: and that my virtue forbade me. But for the discovery
of this amour, I am indebted to your friend, or your wife's friend,
Mrs. Marwood.

FAINALL
What should provoke her to be your enemy, unless she
has made you advances which you have slighted? Women do not easily
forgive omissions of that nature.

MIRABELL
She was always civil to me, till of late. I
confess I am not one of those coxcombs who are apt to interpret a
woman's good manners to her prejudice, and think that she who does
not refuse 'em everything can refuse 'em nothing.

FAINALL
You are a gallant man, Mirabell; and though you may
have cruelty enough not to satisfy a lady's longing, you have too
much generosity not to be tender of her honour. Yet you speak with
an indifference which seems to be affected, and confesses you are
conscious of a negligence.

MIRABELL
You pursue the argument with a distrust that seems
to be unaffected, and confesses you are conscious of a concern for
which the lady is more indebted to you than is your wife.

FAINALL
Fie, fie, friend, if you grow censorious I must
leave you:- I'll look upon the gamesters in the next room.

MIRABELL
Who are they?

FAINALL
Petulant and Witwoud.--Bring me some chocolate.

MIRABELL
Betty, what says your clock?

BETTY
Turned of the last canonical hour, sir.

MIRABELL
How pertinently the jade answers me! Ha! almost
one a' clock! [Looking on his watch.] Oh, y'are come!