prince motioned to his companions that they should walk on, and
leave Benedick to meditate upon what he had overheard.

Benedick had been listening with great eagerness to this conversation;
and he said to himself when he heard Beatrice loved him: 'Is it
possible? Sits the wind in that corner?' And when they were gone, he
began to reason in this manner with himself: 'This can be no trick!
they were very serious, and they have the truth from Hero, and seem
to pity the lady. Love me! Why it must be requited! I did never think
to marry. But when I said I should die a bachelor, I did not think I
should live to be married. They say the lady is virtuous and fair. She is
so. And wise in everything but loving me. Why, that is no great
argument of her folly. But here comes Beatrice. By this day, she is a
fair lady. I do spy some marks of love in her.' Beatrice now
approached him, and said with her usual tartness: 'Against my will I
am sent to bid you come in to dinner.' Benedick, who never felt
himself disposed to speak so politely to her before, replied: 'Fair
Beatrice, I thank you for your pains': and when Beatrice, after two or
three more rude speeches, left him, Benedick thought he observed a
concealed meaning of kindness under the uncivil words she uttered,
and he said aloud: 'If I do not take pity on her, I am a villain. If I do
not love her, I am a Jew. I will go get her picture.'

The gentleman being thus caught in the net they had spread for him, it
was now Hero's turn to play her part with Beatrice; and for this
purpose she sent for Ursula and Margaret, two gentlewomen who
attended upon her, and she said to Margaret: 'Good Margaret, run to
the parlour; there you will kind my cousin Beatrice talking with the
prince and Claudio. Whisper in her ear, that I and Ursula are walking
in the orchard, and that our discourse is all of her. Bid her steal into