CYNT. Well, if the devil should assist her, and your plot miscarry—
MEL. Ay, what am I to trust to then?
CYNT. Why, if you give me very clear demonstration that it was the devil, I’ll allow for irresistible odds. But if I find it to be only chance, or destiny, or unlucky stars, or anything but the very devil, I’m inexorable: only still I’ll keep my word, and live a maid for your sake.
MEL. And you won’t die one, for your own, so still there’s hope.
CYNT. Here’s my mother-in-law, and your friend Careless; I would not have ’em see us together yet.
SCENE II.
Careless and Lady Plyant.
LADY PLYANT. I swear, Mr. Careless, you are very alluring, and say so many fine things, and nothing is so moving to me as a fine thing. Well, I must do you this justice, and declare in the face of the world, never anybody gained so far upon me as yourself. With blushes I must own it, you have shaken, as I may say, the very foundation of my honour. Well, sure, if I escape your importunities, I shall value myself as long as I live, I swear.
CARE. And despise me. [Sighing.]
LADY PLYANT. The last of any man in the world, by my purity; now you make me swear. O gratitude forbid, that I should ever be wanting in a respectful acknowledgment of an entire resignation of all my best wishes for the person and parts of so accomplished a person, whose merit challenges much more, I’m sure, than my illiterate praises can description.