ery honest, and
that he loved me sincerely; but I construed it quite another way,
namely, that he aimed at the money. But how surprised did he look, and
how was he confounded, when he found me receive his proposal with
coldness and indifference, and still tell him that it was the only thing
I could not grant!

He was astonished. "What! not take me now," says he, "when I have been
abed with you!" I answered coldly, though respectfully still, "It is
true, to my shame be it spoken," says I, "that you have taken me by
surprise, and have had your will of me; but I hope you will not take it
ill that I cannot consent to marry for all that. If I am with child,"
said I, "care must be taken to manage that as you shall direct; I hope
you won't expose me for my having exposed myself to you, but I cannot go
any farther." And at that point I stood, and would hear of no matrimony
by any means.

Now, because this may seem a little odd, I shall state the matter
clearly, as I understood it myself. I knew that, while I was a mistress,
it is customary for the person kept to receive from them that keep; but
if I should be a wife, all I had then was given up to the husband, and I
was henceforth to be under his authority only; and as I had money
enough, and needed not fear being what they call a cast-off mistress, so
I had no need to give him twenty thousand pounds to marry me, which had
been buying my lodging too dear a great deal.

Thus his project of coming to bed to me was a bite upon himself, while
he intended it for a bite upon me; and he was no nearer his aim of
marrying me than he was before. All his arguments he could urge upon the
subject of matrimony were at an end, for I positively declined marrying
him; and as he had refused the thousand pistoles which I had offered him
in compensation for his expenses and loss at Paris with the Jew, and had
done it upon the hopes he had of marrying me, so when he found his way
difficult still, he was amazed, and, I had some reason to believe,
repented that he had refused the money.

But thus it is when men run into wicked measures to bring their designs
about. I, that was infinitely obliged to him before, began to talk to
him as if I had balanced accounts with him now, and that the favour of
lying with a whore was equal, not to the thousand pistoles only, but to
all the debt I owed him for saving my life and all my effects.

But he drew himself into it, and though it was a dear bargain, yet