interest; but let us not continue this conversation, I beg of you; leave
me a little to my own thoughts.

ASC. Cruel sister, you will drive me to despair if you carry your design
into execution.




SCENE IV.--LUCILE, MARINETTE.


MAR. Your resolution, madam, is very sudden.

LUC. A heart considers nothing when it is once affronted, but flies to
its revenge, and eagerly lays hold of whatever it thinks can minister to
its resentment. The wretch! To treat me with such extreme insolence!

MAR. You see I have not yet recovered the effects; though I were to
brood over it to all eternity, I cannot understand it, and all my labour
is in vain. For never did a lover express more delight on receiving good
news; so pleased was he with your kind note that he called me nothing
less than a divine creature; and yet, when I brought him the other
message, there was never a poor girl treated so scurvily. I cannot
imagine what could happen in so short a time to occasion so great a
change.

LUC. Do not trouble yourself about what may have happened, since nothing
shall secure him against my hatred. What! do you think there is any
secret reason for this affront but his own baseness? Does the