SIR WIL. Dear heart, that’s much. Hah! that you should hate ’em both! Hah! ’tis like you may! There are some can’t relish the town, and others can’t away with the country, ’tis like you may be one of those, cousin. MILLA. Ha, ha, ha! Yes, ’tis like I may. You have nothing further to say to me? SIR WIL. Not at present, cousin. ’Tis like when I have an opportunity to be more private—I may break my mind in some measure—I conjecture you partly guess. However, that’s as time shall try. But spare to speak and spare to speed, as they say. MILLA. If it is of no great importance, Sir Wilfull, you will oblige me to leave me: I have just now a little business. SIR WIL. Enough, enough, cousin. Yes, yes, all a case. When you’re disposed, when you’re disposed. Now’s as well as another time; and another time as well as now. All’s one for that. Yes, yes; if your concerns call you, there’s no haste: it will keep cold as they say. Cousin, your servant. I think this door’s locked. MILLA. You may go this way, sir. SIR WIL. Your servant; then with your leave I’ll return to my company. MILLA. Ay, ay; ha, ha, ha! Like Phœbus sung the no less am’rous boy. SCENE V. MRS. MILLAMANT, MIRABELL. MIRA. Like Daphne she, as lovely and as coy. Do you lock yourself up from me, to make my search more curious? Or is this pretty artifice contrived, to signify that here the chase must end, and my pursuit be crowned, for you can fly no further? MILLA. Vanity! No—I’ll fly and be followed to the last moment; though I am upon the very verge of matrimony, I expect you should solicit me as much as if I were wavering at the grate of a monastery, with one foot over the threshold. I’ll be solicited to the very last; nay, and afterwards. MIRA. What, after the last? MILLA. Oh, I should think I was poor and had nothing to bestow if I were reduced to an inglorious ease, and freed from the agreeable fatigues of solicitation. MIRA. But do not you know that when favours are conferred upon instant and tedious solicitation, that they diminish in their value, and that both the giver loses the grace, and the receiver lessens his pleasure? MILLA. It may be in things of common application, but never, sure, in love. Oh, I hate a lover that can dare to think he draws a moment’s air independent on the bounty of his mistress. There is not so impudent a thing in nature as the saucy look of an assured man confident of success: the pedantic arrogance of a very husband has not so pragmatical an air. Ah, I’ll never marry, unless I am first made sure of my will and pleasure. MIRA. Would you have ’em both before marriage? Or will you be contented with the first now, and stay for the other till after grace?