Why this question? She is, as I think, at a friend's house at a
ball.
SGAN. Eh! Oh yes! Follow me; you shall see to what ball Missy is gone.
AR. What do you mean?
SGAN. You have brought her up very well indeed. It is not good to be
always finding fault; the mind is captivated by much tenderness; and
suspicious precautions, bolts, and bars, make neither wives nor maids
virtuous; we cause them to do evil by so much austerity; their sex
demands a little freedom. Of a verity she has taken her fill of it, the
artful girl; and with her, virtue has grown very complaisant.
AR. What is the drift of such a speech?
SGAN. Bravo, my elder brother! it is what you richly deserve; I would
not for twenty pistoles that you should have missed this fruit of your
silly maxims. Look what our lessons have produced in these two sisters:
the one avoids the gallants, the other runs after them.
AR. If you will not make your riddle clearer...
SGAN. The riddle is that her ball is at Val?re's; that I saw her go to
him under cover of night, and that she is at this moment in his arms.
AR. Who?
SGAN. L?onor.
AR. A truce to jokes, I beg of you.
SGAN. I joke... He is excellent with his joking! Poor fellow! I tell
you, and tell you again, that Val?re has your L?onor in his house, and
that they had pledged each other before he dreamed of running after
Isabella.
AR. This story is so very improbable...
SGAN. He will not believe it, even when he sees it.
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