The craziest seduction line in literature

Finished the first volume, Some Do Not..., of Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, and that will be it for now, though may come back to it someday, probably after watching the HBO miniseries (what a cop-out, I know). Such a strange book, and it doesn't really hold up as a novel - I think any reader would be puzzled and disappointed by its lack of a "sense of an ending" - clearly, it's an awkward and eccentric introduction to a set of characters whom we will watch change and evolve - I assume, I hope - over the course of the next 3 volumes, that is, over the course of the war (wwI). At the end of volume one, I'm left with a bitterness and contempt for (most of) the main characters: Macmaster the social climberr living off the benevolence of his easy-touch friend and his indulgent wife (that won't last), the pathetic Valentine Wannop tending to her eccentric mother and dissolute brother and yearning for the unavailable Tietjens while doing nothing with her talents and education aside from uttering quips and correcting the Latin of others, Sylvia T. who abandons husband and child until it's convenient of her to return and then gets weirdly possessive, most of all Tietjens with his serial affairs. Despite his bravery, his willingness to go to the front and even return from to the front, when he clearly could get out of the service or at least assigned to a safe post, he's in many ways a loathsome character - which becomes most evident, to me at least, in the later sections of this volume, as he abandons his wife on the eve of his return to war hoping in his simpering way to have an affair - or resume his affair? I think so, though it's not completely clear - with Valentine W. His seduction line to her pretty much says it all about his character: Will you be my mistress tonight? Oh, so he doesn't love her, doesn't talk about sex or passion or simply how beautiful she is, no, he wants to possess her (be my.... ) but not feel an responsibility for her or compassion or kindness: my mistress. My god!, what kind of people are these? And this poor young woman - her brother a complete idiot and her mother a needy mess - throws herself at T., instead of looking for, even hoping for or expecting or thinking she deserves, a normal relationship - with man who isn't already married and who hasn't been involved in about 5 other sordid affairs, of which she is well aware. Get out of his life, Valentine! I know it's wartime and there are few eligible men hanging around in London - but still, no good can come of this relationship. If any man asks you: Will you be my mistress tonight? - what do you think the answer should be?