Scene VII.

The Way of the World

by William Congreve

MRS. MARWOOD alone.

MRS. MARWOOD
Indeed, Mrs. Engine, is it thus with you? Are
you become a go-between of this importance? Yes, I shall watch you.
Why this wench is the PASSE-PARTOUT, a very master-key to everybody's
strong box. My friend Fainall, have you carried it so swimmingly? I
thought there was something in it; but it seems it's over with you.
Your loathing is not from a want of appetite then, but from a
surfeit. Else you could never be so cool to fall from a principal to
be an assistant, to procure for him! A pattern of generosity, that I
confess. Well, Mr. Fainall, you have met with your match.--O man,
man! Woman, woman! The devil's an ass: if I were a painter, I
would draw him like an idiot, a driveller with a bib and bells. Man
should have his head and horns, and woman the rest of him. Poor,
simple fiend! 'Madam Marwood has a month's mind, but he can't abide
her.' 'Twere better for him you had not been his confessor in that
affair, without you could have kept his counsel closer. I shall not
prove another pattern of generosity; he has not obliged me to that
with those excesses of himself, and now I'll have none of him. Here
comes the good lady, panting ripe, with a heart full of hope, and a
head full of care, like any chymist upon the day of projection.