The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

We had now a second conference upon the subject-matter of the last

conference. 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, and

leaving them to him, 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 propose

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 had no

dishonourable thing in his thoughts about me, and was very far from

offering anything 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 with 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, and besides a little condemning the thing 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.