downstairs, and looked at me with almost something like happiness in
her eyes because I knew La Palferine. Can you see the first idea that
occurred to her? She thought of making a spy of me, but I turned her off
with the light jesting talk of Bohemia.

"A month later, after a first performance of one of du Bruel's plays,
we met in the vestibule of the theatre. It was raining; I went to call
a cab. We had been delayed for a few minutes, so that there were no cabs
in sight. Claudine scolded du Bruel soundly; and as we rolled through
the streets (for she set me down at Florine's), she continued the
quarrel with a series of most mortifying remarks.

"'What is this about?' I inquired.

"'Oh, my dear fellow, she blames me for allowing you to run out for a
cab, and thereupon proceeds to wish for a carriage.'

"'As a dancer,' said she, 'I have never been accustomed to use my feet
except on the boards. If you have any spirit, you will turn out four
more plays or so in a year; you will make up your mind that succeed they
must, when you think of the end in view, and that your wife will not
walk in the mud. It is a shame that I should have to ask for it. You
ought to have guessed my continual discomfort during the five years
since I married you.'

"'I am quite willing,' returned du Bruel. 'But we shall ruin ourselves.'

"'If you run into debt,' she said, 'my uncle's money will clear it off
some day.'

"'You are quite capable of leaving me the debts and taking the
property.'

"'Oh! is that the way you take it?' retorted she. 'I have nothing more
to say to you; such a speech stops my mouth.'

"Whereupon du Bruel poured out his soul in excuses and protestations of
love. Not a word did she say. He took her hands, she allowed him to take
them; they were like ice, like a dead woman's hands. Tullia, you can
understand, was playing to admiration the part of corpse that women
can play to show you that they refuse their consent to anything and
everything; that for you they are suppressing soul, spirit, and life,
and regard themselves as beasts of burden. Nothing so provokes a man
with a heart as this strategy. Women can only use it with those who
worship them.

"She turned to me. 'Do you suppose,' she said scornfully, 'that a Count
would have uttered such an insult even if the thought had entered his
mind? For my misfortune I have lived with dukes, ambassadors, and great
lords, and I know their ways. How intolerable it makes bou