LADY G. But a captious, a passionate one, Lord G----. Who'd have
thought it?
LORD G. Never was there, my dear Miss Byron, such a
strangely-aggravating creature! She could not be so, if she did not
despise me.
LADY G. Fiddle-faddle, silly man! And so you said before. If you
thought so, you take the way, (don't you?) to mend the matter, by dancing
and capering about, and putting yourself into all manner of disagreeable
attitudes; and even sometimes being ready to foam at the mouth?--I told
him, Miss Byron, There he stands, let him deny it, if he can; that I
married a man with another face. Would not any other man have taken this
for a compliment to his natural undistorted face, and instantly have
pulled off the ugly mask of passion, and shewn his own?--
LORD G. You see, you see, the air, Miss Byron!--How ludicrously does
she now, even now--
LADY G. See, Miss Byron!--How captious!--Lord G---- ought to have a
termagant wife: one who could return rage for rage. Meekness is my
crime.--I cannot be put out of temper.--Meekness was never before
attributed to woman as a fault.
LORD G. Good God!--Meekness!--Good God!
LADY G. But, Harriet, do you judge on which side the grievance lies.--
Lord G---- presents me with a face for his, that I never saw him wear
before marriage: He has cheated me, therefore. I shew him the same face
that I ever wore, and treat him pretty much in the same manner (or I am
mistaken) that I ever did: and what reason can he give, that will not
demonstrate him to be the most ungrateful of men, for the airs he gives
himself? Airs that he would not have presumed to put on eight days ago.
Who then, Harriet, has reason to complain of grievance; my lord, or I?
LORD G. You see, Miss Byron--Can there be any arguing with a woman who
knows herself to be in jest, in all she says?
HAR. Why then, my lord, make a jest of it. What will not bear an
argument, will not be worth one's anger.
LORD G. I leave it to Miss Byron, Lady G----, to decide between us, as
she pleases.
LADY G. You'd better leave it to me, sir.
HAR. Do, my lord.
LORD G. Well, madam!--And what is your decree?
LADY G. You, Miss Byron, had best be Lady Chancellor, after all. I
should not bear to have my decree disputed, after it is pronounced.
HAR. If I must, my decree is this:--You, Lady G---- shall own yourself
in fault; and promise amendment. My lord shall forgive you; and promise
that he will, for the future, endeavour to distinguish between your good
and your ill-nature: that he will sit down to jest with your jest, and
never be disturbed at what you say, when he sees it accompanied with that
archness of eye and lip which you put on to your brother, and to every
one whom you best love, when you are disposed to be teazingly facetious.
LADY G. Why, Harriet, you have given Lord G---- a clue to find me out,
and spoil all my sport.
HAR. What say you, my lord?
LORD G. Will Lady G---- own herself in fault, as you propose?
LADY G. Odious recrimination!--I leave you together. I never was in
fault in my life. Am I not a woman? If my lord will ask pardon for his
froppishness, as we say of children--