ANGELICA, VALENTINE.
VALENTINE
Madam, you need not be very much afraid, for I fancy I begin
to come to myself.
ANGELICA
Ay, but if I don't fit you, I'll be hanged. [Aside.]
VALENTINE
You see what disguises love makes us put on. Gods have been
in counterfeited shapes for the same reason; and the divine part of
me, my mind, has worn this mask of madness and this motley livery,
only as the slave of love and menial creature of your beauty.
ANGELICA
Mercy on me, how he talks! Poor Valentine!
VALENTINE
Nay, faith, now let us understand one another, hypocrisy
apart. The comedy draws toward an end, and let us think of leaving
acting and be ourselves; and since you have loved me, you must own I
have at length deserved you should confess it.
ANGELICA
[Sighs.] I would I had loved you--for heav'n knows I pity
you, and could I have foreseen the bad effects, I would have
striven; but that's too late. [Sighs.]
VALENTINE
What sad effects?--what's too late? My seeming madness has
deceived my father, and procured me time to think of means to
reconcile me to him, and preserve the right of my inheritance to his
estate; which otherwise, by articles, I must this morning have
resigned. And this I had informed you of to-day, but you were gone
before I knew you had been here.
ANGELICA
How! I thought your love of me had caused this transport in
your soul; which, it seems, you only counterfeited, for mercenary
ends and sordid interest.
VALENTINE
Nay, now you do me wrong; for if any interest was considered
it was yours, since I thought I wanted more than love to make me
worthy of you.
ANGELICA
Then you thought me mercenary. But how am I deluded by this
interval of sense to reason with a madman?
VALENTINE
Oh, 'tis barbarous to misunderstand me longer.
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