geon species--a pigeon
with a long purse and little brains. Once reduced to a state of
infatuation, almost anything may be done with him. The luxury of
plucking him will employ her delicate fingers for a long time to come.
He may be sponged upon to any extent. The one thing he can do really
well is to pay. His yacht, his drag, his brougham, his riding-horses,
his shooting-box, all are at her disposal. At his expense she dines at
Greenwich; at his expense she views the Derby; at his expense she enjoys
an opera-box. And in return for all this she has only to smile and
murmur "_so_ nice," for the soft simpleton to fancy himself amply
repaid. Then she exacts a great many costly presents, to say nothing of
gloves, trinkets, and _bouquets_. It is curious to note how the code of
propriety has altered in this particular.

In old-fashioned novels the stereotyped dodge for compromising a lady's
reputation is to force a present or a loan of money on her. Nowadays
Lovelace's anxiety is just the other way--to keep the acquisitive
propensity of his liege lady within tolerable bounds. It would be a
great mistake to suppose that a woman can play this game without special
gifts and aptitudes for it. It requires peculiar talents, and peculiar
antecedents. First and foremost, she must have married a man whom she
both dislikes and despises. And, further, she must be proof against the
weakness which some of her sex exhibit, of growing fond of husbands who,
without being Admirable Crichtons, treat them kindly and with
forbearance. Next, she must have thrown overboard all the twaddle about
domestic duties and responsibilities. If her child sickens of the
measles just as she is starting for her bivouac in Norway, or a course
of dinners in the Palais Royal, her duty is to call in the doctor and
go. Weeks afterwards you will find the little darling picking up flesh,
in mamma's absence, at some obscure watering-place. Then her temperament
must be cool, calculating, and passionless in no ordinary degree, and
this character is written in the hard lines of her mouth and the cold
light of her fine eyes.

Lastly, she must have, not a superstitious, but an intelligent regard
for the world's opinion, or rather for the opinion of the influential
part of it. No one has a nicer perception of the difference in the
relative importance of stupid country gossip and ostracism from certain
great houses in London. No one takes more pains to study appearances so