ourselves. Has the Duchess surrendered? If so, I have nothing
more to say. Come, give me your confidence. There is no

occasion to waste your time in grafting your great nature on that
unthankful stock, when all your hopes and cultivation will come

to nothing."
Armand ingenuously made a kind of general report of his position,

enumerating with much minuteness the slender rights so hardly
won. Ronquerolles burst into a peal of laughter so heartless,

that it would have cost any other man his life. But from their
manner of speaking and looking at each other during that colloquy

beneath the wall, in a corner almost as remote from intrusion as
the desert itself, it was easy to imagine the friendship between

the two men knew no bounds, and that no power on earth could
estrange them.

"My dear Armand, why did you not tell me that the Duchess was a
puzzle to you? I would have given you a little advice which

might have brought your flirtation properly through. You must
know, to begin with, that the women of our Faubourg, like any

other women, love to steep themselves in love; but they have a
mind to possess and not to be possessed. They have made a sort

of compromise with human nature. The code of their parish gives
them a pretty wide latitude short of the last transgression. The

sweets enjoyed by this fair Duchess of yours are so many venial
sins to be washed away in the waters of penitence. But if you

had the impertinence to ask in earnest for the moral sin to which
naturally you are sure to attach the highest importance, you

would see the deep disdain with which the door of the boudoir and
the house would be incontinently shut upon you. The tender

Antoinette would dismiss everything from her memory; you would be
less than a cipher for her. She would wipe away your kisses, my

dear friend, as indifferently as she would perform her ablutions.
She would sponge love from her cheeks as she washes off rouge.

We know women of that sort--the thorough-bred Parisienne. Have
you ever noticed a grisette tripping along the street? Her face

is as good as a picture. A pretty cap, fresh cheeks, trim hair,
a guileful smile, and the rest of her almost neglected. Is not

this true to the life? Well, that is the Parisienne. She knows
that her face is all that will be seen, so she devotes all her

care, finery, and vanity to her head. The Duchess is the same;
the head is everything with her. She can only feel through her

intellect, her heart lies in her brain, she is a sort of
intellectual epicure, she has a head-voice. We call that kind of

poor creature a Lais of the intellect. You have been taken in
like a boy. If you doubt it, you can have proof of it tonight,

this morning, this instant. Go up to her, try the demand as an
experiment, insist peremptorily if it is refused. You might set

about it like the late Marechal de Richelieu, and get nothing for
your pains."

Armand was dumb with amazement.
"Has your desire reached the point of infatuation?"

"I want her at any cost!" Montriveau cried out despairingly.
"Very well. Now, look here. Be as inexorable as she is

herself. Try to humiliate her, to sting her vanity. Do NOT try
to move her heart, nor her soul, but the woman's nerves and

temperament, for she is both nervous and lymphatic. If you can
once awaken desire in her, you are safe. But you must drop these

romantic boyish notions of yours. If when once you have her in
your eagle's talons you yield a point or draw back, if you so

much as stir an eyelid, if she thinks that she can regain her
ascendancy over you, she will slip out of your clutches like a

fish, and you will never catch her again. Be as inflexible as
law. Show no more charity than the headsman. Hit hard, and then

hit again. Strike and keep on striking as if you were giving her
the knout. Duchesses are made of hard stuff, my dear Armand;

there is a sort of feminine nature that is only softened by
repeated blows; and as suffering develops a heart in women of

that sort, so it is a work of charity not to spare the rod. Do
you persevere. Ah! when pain has thoroughly relaxed those nerves

and softened the fibres that you take to be so pliant and
yielding; when a shrivelled heart has learned to expand and

contract and to beat under this discipline; when the brain has
capitulated--then, perhaps, passion may enter among the steel

springs of this machinery that turns out tears and affectations
and languors and melting phrases; then you shall see a most

magnificent conflagration (always supposing that the chimney
takes fire). The steel femininesystem will glow red-hot like

iron in the forge; that kind of heat lasts longer than any other,
and the glow of it may possibly turn to love.

"Still," he continued, "I have my doubts. And, after all, is
it worth while to take so much trouble with the Duchess? Between

ourselves a man of my stamp ought first to take her in hand and
break her in; I would make a charming woman of her; she is a

thoroughbred; whereas, you two left to yourselves will never get
beyond the A B C. But you are in love with her, and just now you

might not perhaps share my views on this subject----. A pleasant
time to you, my children," added Ronquerolles, after a pause.

Then with a laugh: "I have decided myself for facile beauties;
they are tender, at any rate, the natural woman appears in their

love without any of your social seasonings. A woman that haggles
over herself, my poor boy, and only means to inspire love! Well,

have her like an extra horse--for show. The match between the
sofa and confessional, black and white, queen and knight,

conscientious scruples and pleasure, is an uncommonly amusing
game of chess. And if a man knows the game, let him be never so

little of a rake, he wins in three moves. Now, if I undertook a
woman of that sort, I should start with the deliberate purpose

of----" His voice sank to a whisper over the last words in
Armand's ear, and he went before there was time to reply.

As for Montriveau, he sprang at a bound across the courtyard of
the Hotel de Langeais, went unannounced up the stairs straight to

the Duchess's bedroom.
"This is an unheard-of thing," she said, hastilywrapping her

dressing-gown about her. "Armand! this is abominable of you!
Come, leave the room, I beg. Just go out of the room, and go at

once. Wait for me in the drawing-room.--Come now!"
"Dear angel, has a plighted lover no privilege whatsoever?"

"But, monsieur, it is in the worst possible taste of a plighted
lover or a wedded husband to break in like this upon his wife."

He came up to the Duchess, took her in his arms, and held her
tightly to him.

"Forgive, dear Antoinette; but a host of horrid doubts are
fermenting in my heart."

"DOUBTS? Fie!--Oh, fie on you!"
"Doubts all but justified. If you loved me, would you make this

quarrel? Would you not be glad to see me? Would you not have
felt a something stir in your heart? For I, that am not a woman,

feel a thrill in my inmost self at the mere sound of your voice.
Often in a ballroom a longing has come upon me to spring to your

side and put my arms about your neck."
"Oh! if you have doubts of me so long as I am not ready to

spring to your arms before all the world, I shall be doubted all
my life long, I suppose. Why, Othello was a mere child compared

with you!"
"Ah!" he cried despairingly, "you have no love for me----"

"Admit, at any rate, that at this moment you are not lovable."
Then I have still to find favour in your sight?"

"Oh, I should think so. Come," added she, "with a little
imperious air, go out of the room, leave me. I am not like you;