MAR. I feel it a great comfort in my trouble to have the sympathy of a person like you, and I entreat you, Madam, ever to retain for me a friendship so capable of softening the cruelty of my fate. FRO. You really are both very unfortunate not to have told me of all this before. I might certainly have warded off the blow, and not have carried things so far. CLE. What could I do? It is my evil destiny which has willed it so. But you, fair Marianne, what have you resolved to do? What resolution have you taken? MAR. Alas! Is it in my power to take any resolution? And, dependent as I am, can I do anything else except form wishes? CLE. No other support for me in your heart? Nothing but mere wishes? No pitying energy? No kindly relief? No active affection? MAR. What am I to say to you? Put yourself in my place, and judge what I can possibly do. Advise me, dispose of me, I trust myself entirely to you, for I am sure that you will never ask of me anything but what is modest and seemly. CLE. Alas! to what do you reduce me when you wish me to be guided entirely by feelings of strict duty and of scrupulous propriety. MAR. But what would you have me do? Even if I were, for you, to divest myself of the many scruples which our sex imposes on us, I have too much regard for my mother, who has brought me up with great tenderness, for me to give her any cause of sorrow. Do all you can with her. Strive to win her. I give you leave to say and do all you wish; and if anything depends upon her knowing the true state of my feelings, by all means tell her what they are; indeed I will do it myself if necessary. CLE. Frosine, dear Frosine, will you not help us? FRO. Indeed, I should like to do so, as you know. I am not naturally unkind. Heaven has not given me a heart of flint, and I feel but too ready to help when I see young people loving each other in all earnestness and honesty. What can we do in this case? CLE. Try and think a little. MAR. Advise us. ELI. Invent something to undo what you have done. FRO. Rather a difficult piece of business. (_To_ MARIANNE) As far as your mother is concerned, she is not altogether unreasonable and we might succeed in making her give to the son the gift she reserved for the father. (_To_ CLÉANTE) But the most disheartening part of it all is that your father is your father. CLE. Yes, so it is. FRO. I mean that he will bear malice if he sees that he is refused, and he will be in no way disposed afterwards to give his consent to your marriage. It would be well if the refusal could be made to come from him, and you ought to try by some means or other to make him dislike you, Marianne. CLE. You are quite right.