Duke [After the dance.] My curiosity redoubles; I must needs hail that unknown vessel, and enquire whither she’s bound, and what freight she carries.

Fred. She’s not worth your trouble, sir:  She’ll either prove some common courtezan in disguise, or, at best, some homely person of honour, that only dances well enough to invite a sight of herself, and would look ill enough to fright you.

Duke. That’s maliciously said; all I see of her is charming, and I have reason to think her face is of the same piece; at least I’ll try my fortune.

Fred. What an unlucky accident is this!  If my father should discover her, she’s ruined:  If he does not, yet I have lost her conversation to-night.

  Duke approaches LUCRETIA.

Asca. ’Tis the duke himself, who comes to court you.

Luc. Peace, I’ll fit him; for I have been informed, to the least tittle, of his actions since he came to town.

Duke. [To Luc.] Madam, the duke of Mantua, whom you must needs imagine to be in this company, has sent me to you, to know what kind of face there is belonging to that excellent shape, and to those charming motions, which he observed so lately in your dancing.

Luc. Tell his highness, if you please, that there is a face within the mask, so very deformed, that, if it were discovered, it would prove the worst visor of the two; and that, of all men, he ought not to desire it should be exposed, because then something would be found amiss in an entertainment, which he has made so splendid and magnificent.

Duke. The duke, I am sure, would be very proud of your compliment, but it would leave him more unsatisfied than before; for, he will find in it so much of gallantry, as, being added to your other graces, will move him to a strange temptation of knowing you.

Luc. I should still have the same reason to refuse him; for ’twere a madness, when I had charmed him by my motion and converse, to hazard the loss of that conquest by my eyes.

Duke. I am on fire ’till I discover her. [Aside.]—­At least, madam, tell me of what family you are.

Luc. Will you be satisfied, if I tell you I am of the Colonne?  You have seen Julia of that house?

Duke. Then you are she.

Luc. Have I not her stature most exactly?

Duke. As near as I remember.

Luc. But, by your favour, I have nothing of her shape; for, if I may be so vain to praise myself, she’s a little thicker in the shoulders, and, besides, she moves ungracefully.

Duke. Then you are not she again.

Luc. No, not she:  But you have forgotten Emilia of the Ursini, whom the duke saluted yesterday at her balcony, when he entered.  Her air and motion—­

Duke. Are the very same with yours.  Now I am sure I know you.