Lor. Nay, if you talk of considering, let us consider why we are alone.  Do you think the friar left us together to tell beads?  Love is a kind of penurious god, very niggardly of his opportunities:  he must be watched like a hard-hearted treasurer; for he bolts out on the sudden, and, if you take him not in the nick, he vanishes in a twinkling.

Elv. Why do you make such haste to have done loving me?  You men are all like watches, wound up for striking twelve immediately; but after you are satisfied, the very next that follows, is the solitary sound of a single—­one!

Lor. How, madam! do you invite me to a feast, and then preach abstinence?

Elv. No, I invite you to a feast where the dishes are served up in order:  you are for making a hasty meal, and for chopping up your entertainment, like a hungry clown.  Trust my management, good colonel, and call not for your desert too soon:  believe me, that which comes last, as it is the sweetest, so it cloys the soonest.

Lor. I perceive, madam, by your holding me at this distance, that there is somewhat you expect from me:  what am I to undertake, or suffer, ere I can be happy?

Elv. I must first be satisfied, that you love me.

Lor. By all that’s holy! by these dear eyes!—­

Elv. Spare your oaths and protestations; I know you gallants of the time have a mint at your tongue’s end to coin them.

Lor. You know you cannot marry me; but, by heavens, if you were in a condition—­

Elv. Then you would not be so prodigal of your promises, but have the fear of matrimony before your eyes.  In few words, if you love me, as you profess, deliver me from this bondage, take me out of Egypt, and I’ll wander with you as far as earth, and seas, and love, can carry us.

Lor. I never was out at a mad frolic, though this is the maddest I ever undertook.  Have with you, lady mine; I take you at your word; and if you are for a merry jaunt, I’ll try for once who can foot it farthest.  There are hedges in summer, and barns in winter, to be found; I with my knapsack, and you with your bottle at your back:  we will leave honour to madmen, and riches to knaves; and travel till we come to’ the ridge of the world, and then drop together into the next.

Elv. Give me your hand, and strike a bargain.
                                  [He takes her hand, and kisses it.

Lor. In sign and token whereof, the parties interchangeably, and so forth.—­When should I be weary of sealing upon this soft wax?

Elv. O heavens!  I hear my husband’s voice.

Enter GOMEZ.

Gom. Where are you, gentlewoman? there’s something in the wind, I’m sure, because your woman would have run up stairs before me; but I have secured her below, with a gag in her chaps.—­Now, in the devil’s name, what makes this friar here again?  I do not like these frequent conjunctions of the flesh and spirit; they are boding.