Scene IV.

The Way of the World

by William Congreve

MRS. FAINALL, LADY WISHFORT, MRS. MARWOOD.

LADY WISHFORT
O my dear friend, how can I enumerate the
benefits that I have received from your goodness? To you I owe the
timely discovery of the false vows of Mirabell; to you I owe the
detection of the impostor Sir Rowland. And now you are become an
intercessor with my son-in-law, to save the honour of my house and
compound for the frailties of my daughter. Well, friend, you are
enough to reconcile me to the bad world, or else I would retire to
deserts and solitudes, and feed harmless sheep by groves and purling
streams. Dear Marwood, let us leave the world, and retire by
ourselves and be shepherdesses.

MRS. MARWOOD
Let us first dispatch the affair in hand,
madam. We shall have leisure to think of retirement afterwards.
Here is one who is concerned in the treaty.

LADY WISHFORT
O daughter, daughter, is it possible thou
shouldst be my child, bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, and as
I may say, another me, and yet transgress the most minute particle of
severe virtue? Is it possible you should lean aside to iniquity, who
have been cast in the direct mould of virtue? I have not only been a
mould but a pattern for you, and a model for you, after you were
brought into the world.

MRS. FAINALL
I don't understand your ladyship.

LADY WISHFORT
Not understand? Why, have you not been
naught? Have you not been sophisticated? Not understand? Here I am
ruined to compound for your caprices and your cuckoldoms. I must
pawn my plate and my jewels, and ruin my niece, and all little enough
-

MRS. FAINALL
I am wronged and abused, and so are you. 'Tis
a false accusation, as false as hell, as false as your friend there;
ay, or your friend's friend, my false husband.

MRS. MARWOOD
My friend, Mrs. Fainall? Your husband my
friend, what do you mean?

MRS. FAINALL
I know what I mean, madam, and so do you; and
so shall the world at a time convenient.

MRS. MARWOOD
I am sorry to see you so passionate, madam.
More temper would look more like innocence. But I have done. I am
sorry my zeal to serve your ladyship and family should admit of
misconstruction, or make me liable to affronts. You will pardon me,
madam, if I meddle no more with an affair in which I am not
personally concerned.

LADY WISHFORT
O dear friend, I am so ashamed that you should
meet with such returns. You ought to ask pardon on your knees,
ungrateful creature; she deserves more from you than all your life
can accomplish. Oh, don't leave me destitute in this perplexity!
No, stick to me, my good genius.

MRS. FAINALL
I tell you, madam, you're abused. Stick to
you? Ay, like a leech, to suck your best blood; she'll drop off when
she's full. Madam, you shan't pawn a bodkin, nor part with a brass
counter, in composition for me. I defy 'em all. Let 'em prove their
aspersions: I know my own innocence, and dare stand a trial.