SOAP. We have been invited, and are here to accept. I was told Mr. Vane was here. QUIN. No; but he is on the stage. SNARL. Come, then, Soaper. [_They move towards door._ SOAP. (_aside_). Snarl! SNARL. Yes. (_With a look of secret intelligence_). SOAP. (_crosses slowly to Clive_). My dear Mrs. Clive, there was I going away without telling you how charmed I was with your Flippanta; all that sweetness and womanly grace, with which you invested that character, was---- SNARL. Misplaced. Flippanta is a vixen, or she is nothing at all. SOAP. Your Sir John Brute, sir, was a fine performance: you never forgot the gentleman even in your cups. SNARL. Which, as Sir John Brute is the exact opposite of a gentleman, he ought to have forgotten. [_Exit L._ SOAP. But you must excuse me now; I will resume your praise at dinner-time. [_Exit, with bows, L._ CLIVE (_walks in a rage_). We are the most unfortunate of all artists. Nobody regards our feelings. (_Quin shakes his head._) [_Enter Call-Boy L._] CALL-BOY. Mr. Quin and Mrs. Clive! [_Exit Call-Boy L._ QUIN. I shall cut my part in this play. CLIVE (_yawns_). Cut it as deep as you like, there will be enough left; and so I shall tell the author if he is there. [_Exeunt Quin and Clive L._ [_Enter Mr. Vane and Sir Charles Pomander L._] POM. All this eloquence might be compressed into one word--you love Mrs. Margaret Woffington. VANE. I glory in it. POM. Why not, if it amuses you? We all love an actress once in our lives, and none of us twice. VANE. You are the slave of a word, Sir Charles Pomander. Would you confound black and white because both are colours? Actress! Can you not see that she is a being like her fellows in nothing but a name? Her voice is truth, told by music: theirs are jingling instruments of falsehood. POM. No--they are all instruments; but hers is more skilfully tuned and played upon. VANE. She is a fountain of true feeling. POM. No--a pipe that conveys it, without spilling or retaining a drop. VANE. She has a heart alive to every emotion. POM. And influenced by none. VANE. She is a divinity to worship. POM. And a woman to fight shy of. No--no--we all know Peg Woffington; she is a decent actress on the boards, and a great actress off them. But I will tell you how to add a novel charm to her. Make her blush--ask her for the list of your predecessors. VANE (_with a mortified air_). Sir Charles Pomander! But you yourself profess to admire her. POM. And so I do, hugely. Notwithstanding the charms of the mysterious Hebe I told you of, whose antediluvian coach I extricated from the Slough of Despond, near Barnet, on my way to town yesterday, I gave La Woffington a proof of my devotion only two hours ago. VANE. How? POM. By offering her three hundred a-year--house--coach--pin-money--my heart----and the et ceteras. VANE. You? But she has refused.