Chapter: [FAULKLAND discovered alone.]

FAULKLAND
They told me Julia would return directly; I wonder she is not yet come!
How mean does this captious, unsatisfied temper of mine appear to my
cooler judgment! Yet I know not that I indulge it in any other point:
but on this one subject, and to this one subject, whom I think I love
beyond my life, I am ever ungenerously fretful and madly capricious! I
am conscious of it--yet I cannot correct myself! What tender honest joy
sparkled in her eyes when we met! how delicate was the warmth of her
expression! I was ashamed to appear less happy--though I had come
resolved to wear a face of coolness and upbraiding. Sir Anthony's
presence prevented my proposed expostulations: yet I must be satisfied
that she has not been so very happy in my absence. She is coming!
Yes!--I know the nimbleness of her tread, when she thinks her impatient
Faulkland counts the moments of her stay.

[Enter JULIA.]

JULIA
I had not hoped to see you again so soon.

FAULKLAND
Could I, Julia, be contented with my first welcome--restrained as we
were by the presence of a third person?

JULIA
O Faulkland, when your kindness can make me thus happy, let me not
think that I discovered something of coldness in your first salutation.

FAULKLAND
'Twas but your fancy, Julia. I was rejoiced to see you--to see you in
such health. Sure I had no cause for coldness?

JULIA
Nay, then, I see you have taken something ill. You must not conceal
from me what it is.

FAULKLAND
Well, then--shall I own to you that my joy at hearing of your health
and arrival here, by your neighbour Acres, was somewhat damped by his
dwelling much on the high spirits you had enjoyed in Devonshire--on
your mirth--your singing--dancing, and I know not what! For such is my
temper, Julia, that I should regard every mirthful moment in your
absence as a treason to constancy. The mutual tear that steals down the
cheek of parting lovers is a compact, that no smile shall live there
till they meet again.

JULIA
Must I never cease to tax my Faulkland with this teasing minute
caprice? Can the idle reports of a silly boor weigh in your breast
against my tried affections?

FAULKLAND
They have no weight with me, Julia: No, no--I am happy if you have been
so--yet only say, that you did not sing with mirth--say that you
thought of Faulkland in the dance.

JULIA
I never can be happy in your absence. If I wear a countenance of
content, it is to show that my mind holds no doubt of my Faulkland's
truth. If I seemed sad, it were to make malice triumph; and say, that I
had fixed my heart on one, who left me to lament his roving, and my own
credulity. Believe me, Faulkland, I mean not to upbraid you, when I
say, that I have often dressed sorrow in smiles, lest my friends should
guess whose unkindness had caused my tears.

FAULKLAND
You were ever all goodness to me. Oh, I am a brute, when I but admit a
doubt of your true constancy!

JULIA
If ever without such cause from you, as I will not suppose possible,
you find my affections veering but a point, may I become a proverbial
scoff for levity and base ingratitude.

FAULKLAND
Ah! Julia, that last word is grating to me. I would I had no title to
your gratitude! Search your heart, Julia; perhaps what you have
mistaken for love, is but the warm effusion of a too thankful heart.

JULIA
For what quality must I love you?

FAULKLAND
For no quality! To regard me for any quality of mind or understanding,
were only to esteem me. And for person--I have often wished myself
deformed, to be convinced that I owed no obligation there for any part
of your affection.

JULIA
Where nature has bestowed a show of nice attention in the features of a
man, he should laugh at it as misplaced. I have seen men, who in this
vain article, perhaps, might rank above you; but my heart has never
asked my eyes if it were so or not.

FAULKLAND
Now this is not well from you, Julia--I despise person in a man--yet if
you loved me as I wish, though I were an AEthiop, you'd think none so
fair.

JULIA
I see you are determined to be unkind! The contract which my poor
father bound us in gives you more than a lover's privilege.

FAULKLAND
Again, Julia, you raise ideas that feed and justify my doubts. I would
not have been more free--no--I am proud of my restraint.
Yet--yet--perhaps your high respect alone for this solemn compact has
fettered your inclinations, which else had made a worthier choice. How
shall I be sure, had you remained unbound in thought and promise, that
I should still have been the object of your persevering love?

JULIA
Then try me now. Let us be free as strangers as to what is past: my
heart will not feel more liberty!

FAULKLAND
There now! so hasty, Julia! so anxious to be free! If your love for me
were fixed and ardent, you would not lose your hold, even though I
wished it!

JULIA
Oh! you torture me to the heart! I cannot bear it.

FAULKLAND
I do not mean to distress you. If I loved you less I should never give
you an uneasy moment. But hear me. All my fretful doubts arise from
this. Women are not used to weigh and separate the motives of their
affections: the cold dictates of prudence, gratitude, or filial duty,
may sometimes be mistaken for the pleadings of the heart. I would not
boast--yet let me say, that I have neither age, person, nor character,
to found dislike on; my fortune such as few ladies could be charged
with indiscretion in the match. O Julia! when love receives such
countenance from prudence, nice minds will be suspicious of its birth.

JULIA
I know not whither your insinuations would tend:--but as they seem
pressing to insult me, I will spare you the regret of having done
so.--I have given you no cause for this! [Exit in tears.]

FAULKLAND
In tears! Stay, Julia: stay but for a moment.--The door is
fastened!--Julia!--my soul--but for one moment!--I hear her
sobbing!--'Sdeath! what a brute am I to use her thus! Yet
stay!--Ay--she is coming now:--how little resolution there is in a
woman!--how a few soft words can turn them!--No, faith!--she is not
coming either.--Why, Julia--my love--say but that you forgive me--come
but to tell me that--now this is being too resentful. Stay! she is
coming too--I thought she would--no steadiness in anything: her going
away must have been a mere trick then--she shan't see that I was hurt
by it.--I'll affect indifference--[Hums a tune; then listens.]
No--zounds! she's not coming!--nor don't intend it, I suppose.--This is
not steadiness, but obstinacy! Yet I deserve it.--What, after so long
an absence to quarrel with her tenderness!--'twas barbarous and
unmanly!--I should be ashamed to see her now.--I'll wait till her just
resentment is abated--and when I distress her so again, may I lose her
for ever! and be linked instead to some antique virago, whose gnawing
passions, and long hoarded spleen, shall make me curse my folly half
the day and all the night. [Exit.]

 In Julia's dressing room, Faulkland is alone. He remembers when he and Julia first fell in love, when suddenly Julia enters. She confronts Faulkland about the fact that he has been cold, and that he is often doubtful of her love for him. He confronts her about her actions, and suggests that she does not love him, but she insists she does. When he doesn't believe her, she flees the room, weeping. Seeing how upset she is, Faulkland expresses regret for his behavior, and vows to himself to make it up to her the next time he sees her

