MASK. I grant you in appearance all is true; I seemed consenting to
my lord--nay, transported with the blessing. But could you think
that I, who had been happy in your loved embraces, could e'er be
fond of an inferior slavery?

LORD TOUCH. Ha! Oh, poison to my ears! What do I hear?

CYNT. Nay, good my lord, forbear resentment; let us hear it out.

LORD TOUCH. Yes, I will contain, though I could burst.

MASK. I, that had wantoned in the rich circle of your world of
love, could be confined within the puny province of a girl? No.
Yet though I dote on each last favour more than all the rest, though
I would give a limb for every look you cheaply throw away on any
other object of your love: yet so far I prize your pleasures o'er
my own, that all this seeming plot that I have laid has been to
gratify your taste and cheat the world, to prove a faithful rogue to
you.

LADY TOUCH. If this were true. But how can it be?

MASK. I have so contrived that Mellefont will presently, in the
chaplain's habit, wait for Cynthia in your dressing-room; but I have
put the change upon her, that she may be other where employed. Do
you procure her night-gown, and with your hoods tied over your face,
meet him in her stead. You may go privately by the back stairs,
and, unperceived, there you may propose to reinstate him in his
uncle's favour, if he'll comply with your desires--his case is