Lady Grace. What induc'd you, then, to be with them?
Man. Idleness, and the Fashion.
Lady Grace. No Mistresses in the case?
Man. To speak honestly—Yes—being often in the toyshop, there was no forbearing the bawbles.
Lady Grace. And of course, I suppose sometimes you were tempted to pay for them, twice as much as they were worth.
Man. Why really, where fancy only makes the choice, Madam, no wonder if we are generally bubbled, in those sort of bargains, which I confess has been often my case: For I had constantly some Coquette, or other, upon my hands, whom I could love perhaps just enough to put it in her power to plague me.
Lady Grace. And that's a pow'r, I doubt, commonly made use of.
Man. The amours of a Coquette, Madam, seldom have any other view. I look upon Them, and Prudes, to be nusances, just alike; tho' they seem very different: The first are always plaguing the Men; and the other are always abusing the Women.
Lady Grace. And yet both of them do it for the same vain ends; to establish a false character of being virtuous.
Man. Of being chaste, they mean; for they know no other virtue: and, upon the credit of that, they traffick in every thing else that's vicious: They (even against Nature) keep their chastity, only because they find they have more power to do mischief with it, than they could possibly put in practice without it.