40
THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF MOLL FLANDERS
of this fortune, I presently found myself blessed with admirers enough (and that I had my choice of men), as they said they were, which, by the way, confirms what I was saying before. This being my case, I, who had a subtle game to play, had nothing now to do but to single out from them all the properest man that might be for my purpose; that is to say, the man who was most likely to depend upon the hearsay of fortune, and not inquire too far into the particulars; and unless I did this I did nothing, for my case would not bear much inquiry.
I picked out my man without much difficulty, by the judgment I made of his way of courting me. I had let him run on with his protestations that he loved me above all the world; that if I would make him happy, that was enough; all which I knew was upon supposition that I was very rich, though I never told him a word of it myself.
This was my man; but I was to try him to the bottom; and indeed in that consisted my safety, for if he balked, I knew I was undone, as surely as he was undone if he took me; and if I did not make some scruple about his fortune, it was the way to lead him to raise some about mine; and first, therefore, I pretended on all occasions to doubt his sincerity; and told him perhaps he only courted me for my fortune. He stopped my mouth in that part with the thunder of his protestations as above, but still I pretended to doubt.
One morning he pulls off his diamond ring, and writes upon the glass of the sash in my chamber this line:
You I love, and you alone.
I read it, and asked him to lend me the ring, with which I wrote under it, thus:
And so in love says every one.
He takes his ring again, and writes another line thus:
Virtue alone is an estate.
I borrowed it again, and I wrote under it:
But money's virtue, gold is fate.
He coloured as red as fire to see me turn so quick upon him, and in a kind of rage told me he would conquer me, and wrote again thus:
I scorn your gold, and yet I love.
I ventured all upon the last cast of poetry, as you'll see, for I wrote boldly under his last:
I'm poor; let's see how kind you'll prove.
This was a sad truth to me; whether he believed me or no I could not tell; I supposed then that he did not. However, he flew to me, took me in his arms, and, kissing me very eagerly, and with the greatest passion imaginable, he held me fast till he called for a pen and ink, and told me he could not wait the tedious writing on a glass, but pulling out a piece of paper, he began and wrote again:
Be mine with all your poverty.
I took his pen, and followed immediately, thus:
Yet secretly you hope I lie.
