you have acted the part of a villain by me!
--You would repair your fault: but I won't let you, that I may have the
satisfaction of exposing you; and the pride of refusing you.

But, was that the case? Was that the case? Would I pretend to say, I
would now marry the lady, if she would have me?

Lovel. You find she renounces Lady Betty's mediation----

Lord M. [Interrupting me.] Words are wind; but deeds are mind: What
signifies your cursed quibbling, Bob?--Say plainly, if she will have
you, will you have her? Answer me, yes or no; and lead us not a
wild-goose chace after your meaning.

Lovel. She knows I would. But here, my Lord, if she thus goes on to
expose herself and me, she will make it a dishonour to us both to marry.

Charl. But how must she have been treated--

Lovel. [Interrupting her.] Why now, Cousin Charlotte, chucking her
under the chin, would you have me tell you all that has passed between
the lady and me? Would you care, had you a bold and enterprizing lover,
that proclamation should be made of every little piece of amorous
roguery, that he offered to you?

Charlotte reddened. They all began to exclaim. But I proceeded.

The lady says, 'She has been dishonoured' (devil take me, if I spare
myself!) 'by means that would shock humanity to be made acquainted with
them.' She is a very innocent lady, and may not be a judge of the means
she hints at. Over-niceness may be under-niceness: Have you not such a
proverb, my Lord?--tantamount to, One extreme produces another!----Such
a lady as this may possibly think her case more extraordinary than it is.
This I will take upon me to say, that if she has met with the only man in
the world who would have treated her, as she says I have treated her, I
have met in her with the only woman in the world who would have made such
a rout about a case that is uncommon only from the circumstances that
attend it.

This brought them all upon me; hands, eyes, voices, all lifted at once.
But my Lord M. who has in his head (the last seat of retreating lewdness)
as much wickedness as I have in my heart, was forced (upon the air I
spoke this with, and Charlotte's and all the rest reddening) to make a
mouth that was big enough to swallow up the other half of his face;
crying out, to avoid laughing, Oh! Oh!--as if under the power of a gouty
twinge.

Hadst thou seen how the two tabbies and the young grimalkins looked at
one another, at my Lord, and at me,