CLIN. Had my affairs in love been prosperous, They had, I know, been here long since: but, ah, I fear she's fall'n from virtue in my absence: So many things concur to prove it so, My mind misgives me; opportunity, The place, her age, an infamous old mother, Under whose governance she lives, to whom 'Naught but gain's precious. _To him CLITIPHO._ CLIT. Clinia! CLIN. Woe is me! (_To himself._) CLIT. Take heed, lest some one issue from your father's, And chance to see you here. CLIN. I will: but yet My mind forebodes I know not what of ill. CLIT. What, still foreboding, ere you know the truth? CLIN. Had there been no untoward circumstance, They had return'd already CLIT. Patience, Clinia! They'll be here presently. CLIN. Presently! but when? CLIT. Consider, 'tis a long way off: and then You know the ways of women; to set off, And trick their persons out, requires an age. CLIN. Oh Clitipho, I fear---- CLIT. Take courage; see, Dromo and Syrus! SCENE II. _Enter SYRUS and DROMO, conversing at a distance._ SYRUS. Say you? DROMO. Even so. SYRUS. But while we chat, the girls are left behind. CLIT. (_listening._) Girls, Clinia! do you hear? CLIN. I hear, I see, And now, at last, I'm happy, Clitipho. DROMO (_to SYRUS_). Left behind! troth, no wonder: so encumber'd; A troop of waiting-women at her heels! CLIN. (_listening_). Confusion! Whence should she have waiting-women? CLIT. How can I tell? SYRUS (_to DROMO_). We ought not to have dropp'd them. They bring a world of baggage! CLIN. (_listening_). Death! SYRUS. Gold, clothes! It grows late too, and they may miss their way. We've been to blame: Dromo, run back, and meet them. Away! quick! don't loiter. (_Exit DROMO._ CLIN. What a wretch! All my fair hopes quite blasted! CLIT. What's the matter? What is it troubles you? CLIN. What troubles me? D'ye hear? She waiting-women, gold, and clothes! She, whom I left with one poor servant-girl! Whence come they, think you? CLIT. Oh, I take you now. SYRUS (_to himself_). Gods, what a crowd! our house will hardly hold them. What eating, and what drinking will there be! How miserable our old gentleman! But here are those I wish'd to see! (_Seeing CLIT. and CLIN._) CLIN. Oh Jove! Where then are truth, and faith, and honor fled? While I a fugitive, for love of you, Quit my dear country, you, Antiphila, For sordid gain desert me in distress! You, for whose sake I courted infamy, And cast off my obedience to my father. He, I remember now with grief and shame, Oft warn'd me of these women's ways; oft tried In vain by sage advice to wean me from her. But now I bid farewell to her forever; Though, when 'twere good and wholesome, I was froward. No wretch more curs'd than I! SYRUS. He has misconstrued All our discourse, I find--You fancy, Clinia, Your mistress other than she is. Her life, As far as we from circumstance could learn, Her disposition tow'rd you, are the same.