How we cite our quotes: (Act.Scene.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"No, no Madame! It's in such lovely hands. It's a present from my father." (3.7.28)
Cléante loves to annoy his father, and there's no better way for him to do this than to make his father lose money. In this instance, he takes a ring off his father's finger and gives it to Mariane as a present from Harpagon. Harpagon would never give away anything that valuable. But in order to save face, he has to go along with Cléante's manipulation.
Quote #5
"What we really need is to arrange things so that he turns you down, and for that to happen we need to find a way of making him take a dislike to you, Mariane." (4.1.18)
According to Frosine, Cléante and Mariane will never be able to get Harpagon to let Mariane go. They figure that the only way they will ever get it to happen is to somehow make Mariane seem ugly and blah. This is a great little scheme, but Molière doesn't pursue it at all. Instead, he has Harpagon find out about Cléante's attraction to Mariane, and the whole plan sinks before anything can come of it.
Quote #6
"What's this? My son kissing the hand of his stepmother-to-be! And the stepmother-to-be is not putting up much resistance." (4.2.1)
Harpagon isn't a fool. He knows something fishy is going on when he sees Cléante kissing Mariane's hand. Harpagon, in fact, eventually uses his intelligence to turn things around on Cléante and manipulate Cléante into revealing his true feelings for Mariane.