corned to expect
anything from me but what he knew as a woman of honour I could grant.
Then as to maintenance, he told me he would soon show me that he valued
me infinitely above L500 a year, and upon this foot we began.

I seemed kinder to him after this discourse, and as time and private
conversation made us very intimate, we began to come nearer to the main
article, namely, the L500 a year. He offered that at first word, and to
acknowledge it as an infinite favour to have it be accepted of; and I,
that thought it was too much by all the money, suffered myself to be
mastered, or prevailed with to yield, even on but a bare engagement upon
parole.

When he had obtained his end that way, I told him my mind. "Now you
see, my lord," said I, "how weakly I have acted, namely, to yield to you
without any capitulation, or anything secured to me but that which you
may cease to allow when you please. If I am the less valued for such a
confidence, I shall be injured in a manner that I will endeavour not to
deserve."

He told me that he would make it evident to me that he did not seek me
by way of bargain, as such things were often done; that as I had treated
him with a generous confidence, so I should find I was in the hands of a
man of honour, and one that knew how to value the obligation; and upon
this he pulled out a goldsmith's bill for L300, which (putting it into
my hand), he said, he gave me as a pledge that I should not be a loser
by my not having made a bargain with him.

This was engaging indeed, and gave me a good idea of our future
correspondence; and, in short, as I could not refrain treating him with
more kindness than I had done before, so one thing begetting another, I
gave him several testimonies that I was entirely his own by inclination
as well as by the common obligation of a mistress, and this pleased him
exceedingly.

Soon after this private engagement I began to consider whether it were
not more suitable to the manner of life I now led to be a little less
public; and, as I told my lord, it would rid me of the importunities of
others, and of continual visits from a sort of people who he knew of,
and who, by the way, having now got the notion of me which I really
deserved, began to talk of the old game, love and gallantry, and to
offer at what was rude enough--things as nauseous to me now as if I had
been married and as virtuous as other people. The visits of these people
began indeed to be uneasy to me