cacy?
HOMEWARE: You have argued it with her?
ARDEN: I have presumed.
HOMEWARE: And still she refused her hand!
ARDEN: She commended me to you, sir. She has a sound judgement of
persons.
HOMEWARE: I should put it that she passes the Commissioners of Lunacy,
on the ground of her being a humorous damsel. Your predecessors had also
argued it with her; and they, too, discovered their enemy in a whimsical
feminine delicacy. Where is the difference between you? Evidently
she cannot perceive it, and I have to seek: You will have had many
conversations with Astraea?
ARDEN: I can say, that I am thrice the man I was before I had them.
HOMEWARE: You have gained in manhood from conversations with a widow in
her twenty-second year; and you want more of her.
ARDEN: As much as I want more wisdom.
HOMEWARE: You would call her your Muse?
ARDEN: So prosaic a creature as I would not dare to call her that.
HOMEWARE: You have the timely mantle of modesty, Mr. Arden. She has
prepared you for some of the tests with her uncle Homeware.
ARDEN: She warned me to be myself, without a spice of affectation.
HOMEWARE: No harder task could be set a young man in modern days. Oh,
the humorous damsel. You sketch me the dimple at her mouth.
ARDEN: Frankly, sir, I wish you to know me better; and I think I can
bear inspection. Astraea sent me to hear the reasons why she refuses me
a hearing.
HOMEWARE: Her reason, I repeat, is this; to her idea, a second wedlock
is unholy. Further, it passes me to explain. The young lady lands
us where we were at the beginning; such must have been her humorous
intention.
ARDEN: What can I do?
HOMEWARE: Love and war have been compared. Both require strategy and
tactics, according to my recollection of the campaign.
ARDEN: I will take to heart what you say, sir.
HOMEWARE: Take it to head. There must be occasional descent of lovers'
heads from the clouds. And Professor Spiral,--But here we have a belated
breeze of skirts.
(The reference is to the arrival of LYRA, breathless.)
SCENE III
HOMEWARE, ARDEN, LYRA
LYRA: My own dear uncle Homeware!
HOMEWARE: But where is Pluriel?
LYRA: Where is a woman's husband when she is away from him?
HOMEWARE: In Purgatory, by the proper reckoning. But hurry up the
avenue, or you will be late for Professor Spiral's address.
LYRA: I know it all without hearing. Their Spiral! Ah, Mr. Arden! You
have not cho
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