VANE. No influence can ever shake yours. WOFF. Dear friend, for your own sake, not mine; trust your own heart, eyes, and judgment. VANE. I do. I love you; your face is the shrine of sincerity, truth, and candour. I alone know you: your flatterers do not--your detractors--oh! curse them! WOFF. You see what men are! Have I done ill to hide the riches of my heart from the heartless, and keep them all for one honest man, who will be my friend, I hope, as well as my lover? VANE. Ah, that is my ambition. WOFF. We actresses make good the old proverb, "Many lovers, but few friends." And oh! it is we who need a friend. Will you be mine? VANE. I will. Then tell me the way for me, unequal in wit and address to many of your admirers, to win your esteem. WOFF. I will tell you a sure way; never act in my presence, never try to be very clever or eloquent. Remember! I am the goddess of tricks: I can only love my superior. Be honest and frank as the day, and you will be my superior; and I shall love you, and bless the hour you shone on my artificial life. VANE. Oh! thanks, thanks, for this, I trust, is in my power! WOFF. Mind--it is no easy task: to be my friend is to respect me, that I may respect myself the more; to be my friend is to come between me and the temptations of an unprotected life--the recklessness of a vacant heart. VANE. I will place all that is good about me at your feet. I will sympathize with you when you are sad; I win rejoice when you are gay. WOFF. Will you scold me when I do wrong? VANE. Scold you? WOFF. Nobody scolds me now--a sure sign nobody loves me. Will you scold me? VANE (_tenderly_). I will try! and I will be loyal and frank. You will not hate me for a confession I make myself? (_agitated._) WOFF. I shall like you better--oh! so much better. VANE. Then I will own to you---- WOFF. Oh! do not tell me you have loved others before me; I could not bear to hear it. VANE. No--no--I never _loved_ till now. WOFF. Let me hear that only. I am jealous even of the past. Say you never loved but me--never mind whether it is true--say so;--but it is true, for you do not yet know love. Ernest, shall I make you love me, as none of your sex ever loved? with heart, and brain, and breath, and life, and soul? VANE. Teach me so to love, and I am yours for ever. (_Pause_) And now you will keep your promise, to make me happy with your presence this morning at the little festival I had arranged with Cibber and some of our friends of the theatre. WOFF. I shall have so much pleasure; but, _àpropos_, you must include Snarl and Soaper in your list. VANE. What! the redoubtable Aristarchuses of the pit? WOFF. Yes. Oh, you don't know the consequences of loving an actress. You will have to espouse my quarrels, manage my managers, and invite my critics to dinner. VANE. They shall be invited, never fear.