SCAN. So, this is pretty plain. Be not too much concerned, madam; I hope his condition is not desperate. An acknowledgment of love from you, perhaps, may work a cure, as the fear of your aversion occasioned his distemper. ANG. [_Aside_.] Say you so; nay, then, I’m convinced. And if I don’t play trick for trick, may I never taste the pleasure of revenge.—Acknowledgment of love! I find you have mistaken my compassion, and think me guilty of a weakness I am a stranger to. But I have too much sincerity to deceive you, and too much charity to suffer him to be deluded with vain hopes. Good nature and humanity oblige me to be concerned for him; but to love is neither in my power nor inclination, and if he can’t be cured without I suck the poison from his wounds, I’m afraid he won’t recover his senses till I lose mine. SCAN. Hey, brave woman, i’faith—won’t you see him, then, if he desire it? ANG. What signify a madman’s desires? Besides, ’twould make me uneasy:—if I don’t see him, perhaps my concern for him may lessen. If I forget him, ’tis no more than he has done by himself; and now the surprise is over, methinks I am not half so sorry as I was. SCAN. So, faith, good nature works apace; you were confessing just now an obligation to his love. ANG. But I have considered that passions are unreasonable and involuntary; if he loves, he can’t help it; and if I don’t love, I can’t help it; no more than he can help his being a man, or I my being a woman: or no more than I can help my want of inclination to stay longer here. Come, Jenny. SCENE IV. SCANDAL, JEREMY. SCAN. Humh! An admirable composition, faith, this same womankind. JERE. What, is she gone, sir? SCAN. Gone? Why, she was never here, nor anywhere else; nor I don’t know her if I see her, nor you neither. JERE. Good lack! What’s the matter now? Are any more of us to be mad? Why, sir, my master longs to see her, and is almost mad in good earnest with the joyful news of her being here. SCAN. We are all under a mistake. Ask no questions, for I can’t resolve you; but I’ll inform your master. In the meantime, if our project succeed no better with his father than it does with his mistress, he may descend from his exaltation of madness into the road of common sense, and be content only to be made a fool with other reasonable people. I hear Sir Sampson. You know your cue; I’ll to your master. SCENE V. JEREMY, SIR SAMPSON LEGEND, _with a_ LAWYER. SIR SAMP. D’ye see, Mr. Buckram, here’s the paper signed with his own hand. BUCK. Good, sir. And the conveyance is ready drawn in this box, if he be ready to sign and seal. SIR SAMP. Ready, body o’ me? He must be ready. His sham-sickness shan’t excuse him. Oh, here’s his scoundrel. Sirrah, where’s your master? JERE. Ah sir, he’s quite gone. SIR SAMP. Gone! What, he is not dead? JERE. No, sir, not dead.