Diego monologue (Act 3) — Ariadne in Mantua: A Romance in Five Acts

I stand rebuked, my Lord. But, in my own defence----how shall I say it?----Your Highness has a manner to-night which disconcerts me by its novelty; a saying things and then unsaying them; suggesting and then, somehow, treading down the suggestion like a spark of your lightning. Lovers, I have been told, use such a manner to revive their flagging feeling by playing on the other one's. Even in so plain and solid a thing as friendship, such ways--I say it subject to your Highness's displeasure--are dangerous. But in love, I have known cases where, carried to certain lengths, such ways of speaking undermined a woman's faith and led her to desperate things. Women, despite their strength, which often surprises us, are brittle creatures. Did you never, perhaps, make trial of this----Magdalen, with----