The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

He was so confounded at her discourse that he could not answer a word,

and she almost began to believe that all was true, by his disorder,

though at the same time she knew that she had been the raiser of all

those reports herself.

After some time he recovered himself a little, and from that time

became the most humble, the most modest, and most importunate man alive

in his courtship.

She carried her jest on a great way. She asked him, if he thought she

was so at her last shift that she could or ought to bear such

treatment, and if he did not see that she did not want those who

thought it worth their while to come farther to her than he did;

meaning the gentleman whom she had brought to visit her by way of sham.

She brought him by these tricks to submit to all possible measures to

satisfy her, as well of his circumstances as of his behaviour. He

brought her undeniable evidence of his having paid for his part of the

ship; he brought her certificates from his owners, that the report of

their intending to remove him from the command of the ship and put his

chief mate in was false and groundless; in short, he was quite the

reverse of what he was before.

Thus I convinced her, that if the men made their advantage of our sex

in the affair of marriage, upon the supposition of there being such

choice to be had, and of the women being so easy, it was only owing to

this, that the women wanted courage to maintain their ground and to

play their part; and that, according to my Lord Rochester, 'A woman's ne'er so ruined but she can

Revenge herself on her undoer, Man.' After these things this young lady played her part so well, that though

she resolved to have him, and that indeed having him was the main bent

of her design, yet she made his obtaining her be to him the most

difficult thing in the world; and this she did, not by a haughty

reserved carriage, but by a just policy, turning the tables upon him,

and playing back upon him his own game; for as he pretended, by a kind

of lofty carriage, to place himself above the occasion of a character,

and to make inquiring into his character a kind of an affront to him,

she broke with him upon that subject, and at the same time that she

make him submit to all possible inquiry after his affairs, she

apparently shut the door against his looking into her own.