[Enter Proteus, Silvia, and Julia, disguised as a boy]

PROTEUS       Madam, this service I have done for you –

Though you respect not aught your servant doth –

To hazard life, and rescue you from him

That would have forced your honour and your love.

Vouchsafe me for my meed but one fair look.

A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,

And less than this I am sure you cannot give.

VALENTINE    [aside] How like a dream is this I see and hear!

Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile. (5.4.19-27)

The shock is that it’s not Silvia and outlaws, as seen only a moment earlier in the previous scene, but Silvia and Proteus (and poor Julia), Proteus evidently having carried out a rescue mission before the outlaws could bring Silvia to Valentine. And Proteus is being both self-congratulatory and self-righteously, passive-aggressively confused: madam, this service I have done for you—I RESCUED you!! (we have only his word for this)—though you respect not aught you servant doth—you don’t seem to be grateful at all, not in the slightest—to hazard life, and rescue you from him that would have forced your honour and your love. I put myself on the line, right, risked my life, to save you from a man who was going to attack you! sexually assault you! (That is, of course, moot—there was no indication from the outlaws that they intended such an ‘outrage’, although Valentine has just suggested that in the past they had done such things. What matters is that the possibility of rape keeps intruding into the scene; it’s on everyone’s minds, apparently.) Vouchsafe me for my meed but one fair look: ah, Proteus is going full medieval courtly gentle knight, saviour of the damsel in distress, with his vouchsafe and his meed, his reward. Go on, love, give us a smile, you know you want to! It’s the least you can do, the most trivial thing I can ask for! A smaller boon than this I cannot beg, and less than this I am sure you cannot give.

Before Silvia responds, of course Valentine has to comment, in amazement: how like a dream is this I see and hear! Amazing! Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile. I need to wait another moment—even though I don’t want to, even though I want to rush out to Silvia—just to get a better idea of what’s going on here…