CYNT. Within reach; for example, give me your hand. You have looked through the wrong end of the perspective all this while, for nothing has been between us but our fears. MEL. I don't know why we should not steal out of the house this very moment and marry one another, without consideration or the fear of repentance. Pox o' fortune, portion, settlements, and jointures. CYNT. Ay, ay, what have we to do with 'em? You know we marry for love. MEL. Love, love, downright, very villainous love. CYNT. And he that can't live upon love deserves to die in a ditch. Here then, I give you my promise, in spite of duty, any temptation of wealth, your inconstancy, or my own inclination to change-- MEL. To run most wilfully and unreasonably away with me this moment and be married. CYNT. Hold. Never to marry anybody else. MEL. That's but a kind of negative consent. Why, you won't baulk the frolic? CYNT. If you had not been so assured of your own conduct I would not. But 'tis but reasonable that since I consent to like a man without the vile consideration of money, he should give me a very evident demonstration of his wit: therefore let me see you undermine my Lady Touchwood, as you boasted, and force her to give her consent, and then-- MEL. I'll do't. CYNT. And I'll do't. MEL. This very next ensuing hour of eight o'clock is the last minute of her reign, unless the devil assist her _in propria persona_. 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.