_May._ Yet this you must allow a failure in you,--
You love his niece; and to a politician
All passion's bane, but love directly death.
_Gui._ False, false, my Mayenne; thou'rt but half Guise again.
Were she not such a wond'rous composition,
A soul, so flushed as mine is with ambition,
Sagacious and so nice, must have disdained her:
But she was made when nature was in humour,
As if a Grillon got her on the queen,
Where all the honest atoms fought their way,
Took a full tincture of the mother's wit,
But left the dregs of wickedness behind.
_May._ Have you not told her what we have in hand?
_Gui._ My utmost aim has been to hide it from her,
But there I'm short; by the long chain of causes
She has scanned it, just as if she were my soul;
And though I flew about with circumstances.
Denials, oaths, improbabilities;
Yet, through the histories of our lives, she looked,
She saw, she overcame.
_May._ Why then, we're all undone.
_Gui._ Again you err.
Chaste as she is, she would as soon give up
Her honour, as betray me to the king:
I tell thee, she's the character of heaven;
Such an habitual over-womanly goodness,
She dazzles, walks mere angel upon earth.
But see, she comes; call the cardinal Guise,
While Malicorn attends for some dispatches,
Before I take my farewell of the court. [_Exit_ MAY.
_Enter_ MARMOUTIERE.
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