74
THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF MOLL FLANDERS
I found, and was not a little pleased with it, that he had provided a supper for me. I found also he lived very handsomely, and had a house very handsomely furnished, and which I was rejoiced at indeed, for I looked upon it as all my own.
We had now a second conference upon the subject-matter of the last. He laid his business very home indeed; he protested his affection to me, and indeed I had no room to doubt it; he declared that it began from the first moment I talked with him, and long before I had mentioned leaving my effects with him. '’Tis no matter when it began' thought I; if it will but hold, 'twill be well enough.' He then told me how much the offer I had made of trusting him with my effects had engaged him. 'So I intended it should', thought I, 'but then I thought you had been a single man too.' After we had supped, I observed he pressed me very hard to drink two or three glasses of wine, which, however, I declined, but drank one glass or two. He then told me he had a proposal to make to me, which I should promise him I would not take ill if I should not grant it. I told him I hoped he would make no dishonourable proposal to me, especially in his own house, and that, if it was such, I desired he would not mention it, that I might not be obliged to offer any resentment to him that did not become the respect I professed for him, and the trust I had placed in him, in coming to his house; and begged of him he would give me leave to go away, and accordingly began to put on my gloves and prepare to be gone, though at the same time I no more intended it than he intended to let me.
Well, he importuned me not to talk of going; he assured me he was very far from offering any such thing to me that was dishonourable, and, if I thought so, he would choose to say no more of it.
That part I did not relish at all. I told him I was ready to hear anything that he had to say, depending that he would say nothing unworthy of himself, or unfit for me to hear. Upon this, he told me his proposal was this: that I would marry him, though he had not yet obtained the divorce from the whore his wife; and, to satisfy me that he meant honourably, he would promise not to desire me to live with him, or go to bed to him till the divorce was obtained. My heart said Yes to this offer at first word, but it was necessary to play the hypocrite a little more with him; so I seemed to decline the motion with some warmth as unfair, told him that such a proposal could be of no signification but to entangle us both in great difficulties; for, if he should not at last obtain the divorce, yet we could not dissolve the marriage, neither could we proceed in it; so that, if he was disappointed in the divorce, I left him to consider what a condition we should both be in.
In short, I carried on the argument against this so far, that I convinced him it was not a proposal that had any sense in it; then he went from it to another, viz. that I would sign and seal a contract with him, conditioning to marry him as soon as the divorce was obtained, and to be void if he could not get it.
I told him that was more rational than the other; but as this was the first time that ever I could imagine him weak enough to be in earnest, I did not use to say yes at first asking; I would consider of it. I played with this lover as an angler does with a trout: I found I had him fast on the hook; so I jested with his new proposal, and put him off. I told him he knew little of me, and bade him inquire about me; I let him also
