Love for Love

In Valentine’s lodgings, Scandal and Jeremy discuss Valentine’s plot to appear sick and mad. Jeremy reveals that Valentine’s primary motivation in feigning madness is to test Angelica’s feelings for him: “whether his playing / the madman won’t make her play the fool, and fall in love / with him; or at least own that she has loved him all this / while and concealed it” (4.8-11). Angelica enters with her maid, worried about Valentine. She does, however, soon suspect that Scandal is deceiving her, and she notices him winking at Jeremy. She privately vows to “play / trick for trick” (4.57-58) in return, and then she insists to Scandal that her concern for Valentine is only based on common compassion and not love at all. She becomes dismissive of Valentine’s condition and leaves with her maid.

Sir Sampson enters with a lawyer, Mr. Buckram, determined to have Valentine sign the paper for the renunciation of his inheritance. Valentine reacts strongly to the presence of Mr. Buckram and raves in his father’s presence, claiming, “I am Truth” (4.151) and denouncing worldliness. Sir Sampson wavers between doubt and belief in Valentine’s condition, and Mr.