In Act III of “She Stoops to Con­quer,” the con­fu­sion and dis­guise con­tin­ue to unfold with enter­tain­ing com­plex­i­ty. Hard­cas­tle is utter­ly bewil­dered by the behav­ior of young Mar­low, whom he deems impu­dent, con­trary to Sir Charles’s descrip­tion of his son as mod­est. In con­trast, Miss Hard­cas­tle has a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence with Mar­low, see­ing him as timid and respectful—a view that bewil­ders her father. Their amus­ing debate over Mar­low’s char­ac­ter reveals the amus­ing sit­u­a­tion: Mar­low behaves mod­est­ly with women of high­er social stand­ing, mis­tak­en­ly believ­ing Miss Hard­cas­tle to be a maid, he treats her with a flir­ta­tious ease absent in his inter­ac­tions with ladies of his own class.

Tony Lump­kin, who rev­els in the chaos he’s cre­at­ed by mis­lead­ing Mar­low and Hast­ings into think­ing the Hard­cas­tle home is an inn, adds anoth­er lay­er of mis­chief by steal­ing his cousin Con­stance’s jew­els from his moth­er, aim­ing to aid Hast­ings and Con­stance’s elope­ment. Mrs. Hard­cas­tle, who wants to keep Con­stance and her wealth close, is dis­traught over the miss­ing jew­els, unaware that her son is under­min­ing her plans. The com­ic con­trasts between char­ac­ters’ per­cep­tions and real­i­ties, along­side their plots and coun­ter­plots, cre­ate a live­ly com­e­dy of man­ners.

Mar­low’s bla­tant for­ward­ness when he thinks Miss Hard­cas­tle is a bar­maid stark­ly con­trasts with her father’s expec­ta­tions of a mod­est gen­tle­man, while her own cun­ning plan to engage Mar­low in this guise to reveal his true nature makes for a com­pelling explo­ration of social norms and per­son­al iden­ti­ty. The chap­ter con­cludes with mis­un­der­stand­ings still ripe for comedic exploita­tion, as Hard­cas­tle con­tem­plates expelling Mar­low, unaware of the deep­er decep­tions at play. Mean­while, Miss Hard­cas­tle and Mar­low edge clos­er, each under mis­tak­en iden­ti­ties, set­ting the stage for fur­ther comedic entan­gle­ments as she seeks to reveal his true char­ac­ter.