ASC. Cruel sister, you will drive me to despair if you carry your design into execution. SCENE IV.--LUCILE, MARINETTE. MAR. Your resolution, madam, is very sudden. LUC. A heart considers nothing when it is once affronted, but flies to its revenge, and eagerly lays hold of whatever it thinks can minister to its resentment. The wretch! To treat me with such extreme insolence! MAR. You see I have not yet recovered the effects; though I were to brood over it to all eternity, I cannot understand it, and all my labour is in vain. For never did a lover express more delight on receiving good news; so pleased was he with your kind note that he called me nothing less than a divine creature; and yet, when I brought him the other message, there was never a poor girl treated so scurvily. I cannot imagine what could happen in so short a time to occasion so great a change. LUC. Do not trouble yourself about what may have happened, since nothing shall secure him against my hatred. What! do you think there is any secret reason for this affront but his own baseness? Does the unfortunate letter I sent him, and for which I now blame myself, present the smallest excuse for his madness? MAR. Indeed, I must say you are right; this quarrel is downright treachery; we have both been duped, and yet, madam, we listen to these faithless rascals who promise everything; who, in order to hook us, feign so much tenderness; we let our severity melt before their fine speeches, and yield to their wishes, because we are too weak! A shame on our folly, and a plague take the men! LUC. Well, well! let him boast and laugh at us; he shall not long have cause to triumph; I will let him see that in a well-balanced mind hatred follows close on slighted favours. MAR. At least, in such a case, it is a great happiness to know that we are not in their power. Notwithstanding all that was said, Marinette was right the other night to interfere when some people were in a very merry mood. Another, in hopes of matrimony, would have listened to the temptation, but _nescio vos_, quoth I. [Footnote: These two Latin words, which were in very common use in France, during Molière's time, are taken from the Vulgate, Matthew xxv. 12: _"Domine, domine, aperi nobis."--At ille respondens ait: "Amen dico vobis, nescio vos."_]