SCENE III

Ismenia's chamber.

ISMENIA

Brigida lingers. O he has denied me

And therefore she is loth to come, for she

Knows she will bring me death. It is not so.

He has detained her to return an answer.

Yet I asked none. I am full of fear, O heart,

I have staked thee upon a desperate cast,

Which if I win not, I am miserable.

'Tis she. O that my hope could give her wings

Or lift her through the window bodily

To shorten this age of waiting. I could not

Discern her look. Her steps sound hopefully.

Enter Brigida.

Dearest Brigida! at last! What says Antonio? Tell me quickly. Heavens! you look melancholy.

BRIGIDA

Santa Catarina! How weary I am! My ears too! I think they have listened to more nonsense in these twenty minutes than in all their natural eighteen years before. Sure, child, thou hast committed some unpardonable sin to have such a moonstruck lover as this Antonio.

ISMENIA

But, Brigida!

BRIGIDA

And his shadow too, his Cerberus of wit who guards this poetical treasure. He would have eaten me, I think, if I had not given him the wherewithal to stop the three mouths of him. 

ISMENIA

Why, Brigida, Brigida.

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BRIGIDA

Saints! to think how men lie! I have heard this Basil reputed loudly for the Caesar of wits, the tongue and laughter of the time; but never credit me, child, if I did not silence him with a few stale pertnesses a market-girl might have devised for her customers. A wit, truly! and not a word in his mouth bullet-head Pedro could not better.

ISMENIA

Distraction! What is this to Antonio? Sure, your wits are bewildered, Brigida. What said Antonio ? Girl, I am on thorns. 

BRIGIDA

I am coming to that as fast as possible. Jesus! What a burning hurry you are in, Ismenia! You have not your colour, child. I will bring you salvolatile from my chamber. Tis in a marvellous cut-bottle with a different hue to each facet! I filched it from Donna Clara's room when she was at matins yesterday.  

ISMENIA

Tell me, you magpie, tell me.

BRIGIDA

What am I doing else? You must know I found Antonio was in his garden. Oh, did I tell you, Ismenia ? Donna Clara chooses the seeds for me this season and I think she has as rare a notion of nasturtiums as any woman living. I was speaking to Pedro in the summer house yesterday; for you remember it thundered terrifically before one had time to know light from darkness; and there I stood miles from the garden door —

ISMENIA

In the name of pity, Brigida —

BRIGIDA

Saints! how you hurry me. Well, when I went to Antonio in his garden—There's an excellent garden, Ismenia. I wonder

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where Don Beltran's gardener had his bignolias.

ISMENIA

Oh-h-h!

BRIGIDA

Well, where was I ? Oh, giving the letter to Antonio. Why, would you believe it, in thrust Don Wit, Don Cerberus, Don Subtle-
three-mouths.  

ISMENIA

Will you tell me, you ogress, you paragon of Tyrannesses, you she-Nero, you compound of impossible cruelties?

BRIGIDA

Saints, what have I done to be abused so? I was coming to it faster than a mail-coach and four. You would not be so un- conscionable as to ask me for the appendage of a story, all tail and nothing to hang. it on ? Well, Antonio took the letter. 

ISMENIA

Yes, yes and what answer gave he?

BRIGIDA

He looked all over the envelope to-see whence it came, dissertated learnedly on this knotty question, abused me your handwriting foully.

ISMENIA

Dear cousin, sweet cousin, excellent Brigida! On my knees, I entreat you, do not tease me longer. Though I know you would not do it, if all were not well, yet consider what a weak tremulous thing is the heart of woman when she loves and have pity on me. On my knees, sweetest.

BRIGIDA

Why, Ismenia, I never knew you so humble m my life, —save

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indeed to your brother; but him indeed I do not reckon. He would rule even me, if I let him. On your knees, too! This is excellent. May I be lost, if I am not tempted to try how long I can keep you so. But I will be merciful. Well, he scanned your handwriting and reviled it for the script of a virago, an Amazon.

ISMENIA

Brigida, if you will not tell me directly, without phrase and plainly, just what I want to know and nothing else, by heaven, I will beat you.  

BRIGIDA

Now, this is foul. Can you not keep your better mood for fifty seconds by the clock? O temper, temper. Ah, well, where was I? Oh, yes, your handwriting. Oh! Oh! Oh! What mean you, cousin? Lord deliver me. Cousin! Cousin! He will come! He will come! He will come!

ISMENIA

Does he love me?

BRIGIDA

Madly! distractedly! like a moonstruck natural! Saints!

ISMENIA

Dearest, dearest Brigida! You are an angel. How can I thank you?

BRIGIDA

Child, you have thanked me out of breath already. If you have not dislocated my shoulder and torn half of my hair out —

ISMENIA

Hear her, the Pagan! A gentle physical agitation and some rearrangement of tresses, 'twas less punishment than you de- served. But there! that is salve for you. And now be sober, sweet. What said Antonio? Come, tell me. I am greedy to know.

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BRIGIDA

I'll be hanged if I do. Besides I could not if I would. He talked poetry.

ISMENIA

But did he not despise me for my forwardness?

BRIGIDA

Tut, you are childish. But to speak the bare fact, Ismenia, I think he is most poetically in love with you. He made preparations to swoon when he saw no more than your name; but I build nothing on that;¹ there are some faint when they smell a pinch of garlic or spy a cockchafer. But he waited ten minutes copying your letter into his heart or some such note-book of love affairs; yet that was nothing either; I doubt if he found room for you, unless on the margin. Then he began drawing cheques on Olympus for comparisons, left that presently as antique and out of date, confounded Ovid and his breviary in the same quest; left that too for mediaeval, and diverged into Light and Heat, but came not to the very modernness of electricity. But Lord! cousin, what a career he ran! He had imagined himself blind and breathless when I stopped him. I tremble to think what calamities might have ensued had I not thrown myself under the wheels of his metaphor. The upshot is, he loves you, worships you and will come to you. 

ISMENIA

Brigida, Brigida, be you as happy as you have made me.

BRIGIDA

Truly, the happiness of lovers, children, with a new plaything and mad to handle it. But when they are tired of the game — ah, well, I will have nothing of it. No, I will be the type and patroness of spinsters, the noble army of old maids shall gather about my

¹but there was nothing in that;

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tomb to do homage to me.

ISMENIA

And he will come tonight?

BRIGIDA

Yes, if his love lasts so long.

ISMENIA

For a thousand years. Come with me, Brigida, and help me to bear my happiness. Till tonight!

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