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Enter BEATRIX, running.

Beat. Madam, your father calls in haste for you, and is looking for you about the house.

Jac. Adieu, servant; be a good manager of your stock of love, that it may hold out your month; I am afraid you'll waste so much of it before to-morrow night, that you'll shine but with a quarter moon upon me.

Wild. It shall be a crescent.

[Exeunt WILD. and JAC. severally. [BEATRIX is going, and MASKALL runs and stops her.

Mask. Pay your ransom; you are my prisoner. Beat. What do you fight after the French fashion; take towns before you declare a war?

Mask. I shall be glad to imitate them so far, to be in the middle of the country before you could resist me.

Beat. Well, what composition, monsieur?

Mask. Deliver up your lady's secret; what makes her so cruel to my master?

Beat. Which of my ladies, and which of your masters? For, I suppose, we are factors for both of them.

Mask. Your eldest lady, Theodosia.

Beat. How dare you press your mistress to an inconvenience?

Mask. My mistress? I understand not that language; the fortune of the valet ever follows that of the master; and his is desperate: if his fate were altered for the better, I should not care if I ventured upon you for the worse.

Beat. I have told you already, Donna Theodosia loves another.

Mask. Has he no name?

Beat. Let it suffice, he is born noble, though without a fortune. His poverty makes him conceal his love from her father; but she sees him every night in private; and, to blind the world, about a fortnight ago he took a solemn leave of her, as if he were going into Flanders: In the mean time, he lodges at the house of Don Lopez de Gamboa ; and is himself called Don Melchor de Guzman.

Mask. Don Melchor de Guzman! O heavens ! Beat. What amazes you?

Theo. [Within.] Why, Beatrix, where are you? Beat. You hear I am called.-Adieu; and be sure you keep my counsel.

Mask. Come, sir, you see the coast is clear.

Enter BELLAMY.

[Exit BEAT.

Bel. Clear, dost thou say? No, 'tis full of rocks and quicksands: Yet nothing vexes me so much, as that she is in love with such a poor rogue.

Mask. But that she should lodge privately in the same house with us! 'twas oddly contrived of for

tune.

Bel. Hang him, rogue! methinks I see him, perching, like an owl, by day, and not daring to flutter out till moon-light. The rascal invents love, and brews his compliments all day, and broaches them at night; just as some of our dry wits do their stories, before they come into company. Well, if I could be revenged on either of them!

Mask. Here she comes again, with Beatrix; but, good sir, moderate your passion.

Enter THEODOSIA and BEATRIX.

Bel. Nay, madam; you are known; and must not pass till I have spoken with you.

[BEL. lifts up THEODOSIA's veil.

Theo. This rudeness to a person of my quality may cost you dear. Pray, when did I give you en couragement for so much familiarity?

Bel. When you scorned me in the chapel.

Theo. The truth is, I denied you as heartily as could, that I might not be twice troubled with you.

Bel. Yet you have not this aversion for all the world: However, I was in hope, though the day frowned, the night might prove as propitious to me as it is to others.

Theo. I have now a quarrel both to the sun and moon, because I have seen you both by their lights. Bel. Spare the moon, I beseech you, madam; she is a very trusty planet to you.

Beat. O, Maskall, you have ruined me!
Mask. Dear sir, hold yet!

Bel. Away!

Theo. Pray, sir, expound your meaning; for, I confess, I am in the dark.

Bel. Methinks you should discover it by moonlight. Or, if you would have me speak clearer to you, give me leave to wait on you at a midnight assignation; and, that it may not be discovered, I'll feign a voyage beyond sea, as if I were going a captaining to Flanders.

Mask. A pox on his memory! he has not forgot one syllable!

Theo. Ah, Beatrix! you have betrayed and sold

me!

Beat. You have betrayed and sold yourself, madam, by your own rashness to confess it; heaven knows I have served you but too faithfully.

Theo. Peace, impudence! and see my face no

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sir?

me.

Mask. Do you know what work you have made,

Bel. Let her see what she has got by slighting

Mask. You had best let Beatrix be turned away for me to keep: If you do, I know whose purse shall pay fort.

Bel. That's a curse I never thought on: Cast about quickly, and save all yet. Range, quest, and spring a lie immediately!

Theo. [To BEAT.] Never importune me farther; you shall go; there's no removing me.

Beat. Well; this is ever the reward of inno

cence

[Going. Mask. Stay, guiltless virgin, stay; thou shalt not go!

Theo. Why, who should hinder it?

Mask. That will I, in the name of truth,-if this hard-bound lie would but come from me. [Aside. Madam, I must tell you it lies in my power to appease this tempest with one word.

Beat. Would it were come once!

Mask. Nay, sir, 'tis all one to me, if you turn me away upon't; I can hold no longer.

Theo. What does the fellow mean?

Mask. For all your noddings, and your mathe matical grimaces-in short, madam, my master has been conversing with the planets; and from them has had the knowledge of your affairs.

Bel. This rogue amazes me!

Mask. I care not, sir, I am for truth; that will shame you, and all your devils: In short, madam, this master of mine, that stands before you, without a word to say for himself, so like an oaf, as I might say, with reverence to him

Bel. The rascal makes me mad!

Mask. Is the greatest astrologer in Christendom.

Theo. Your master an astrologer?

Mask. A most profound one.

Bel. Why, you dog, you do not consider what an improbable lie this is; which, you know, I can never make good! Disgorge it, you cormorant! or I'll pinch your throat out.

[Takes him by the throat. Mask. 'Tis all in vain, sir! you are, and shall be an astrologer, whatever I suffer; you know all things; see into all things; foretell all things; and if you pinch more truth out of me, I will confess you are a conjurer.

Bel. How, sirrah! a conjurer?

Mask. I mean, sir, the devil is in your fingers: Own it-you had best, sir, and do not provoke me farther. While he is speaking, BELLAMY stops his mouth by fits.] What! did not I see you an hour ago turning over a great folio, with strange figures in it, and then muttering to yourself, like any poet; and then naming Theodosia, and then staring up in the sky, and then poring upon the ground; so that, betwixt God and the devil, madam, he came to know your love.

Bel. Madam, if ever I knew the least term in astrology, I am the arrantest son of a whore breath

ing.

Beat. O, sir, for that matter, you shall excuse my lady Nay, hide your talents if you can, sir. Theo. The more you pretend ignorance, the more we are resolved to believe you skilful.

Bel. You'll hold your tongue yet.

[To MASK.

Mask. You shall never make me hold my tongue, except you conjure me to silence: What! did you not call me to look into a crystal, and there shewed me a fair garden, and a Spaniard stalking in his

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