onjugal pedagogy.

Madame Beauvisage, when the matter was laid before her, swept her
husband into it at a single bound. Maxime recognized her for an
ambitious woman who, in spite of her forty-four years, still had the
air of being conscious of a heart. Hence he saw that the game had better
begin with a false attack on her to fall back later on the daughter. How
far these advanced works could be pushed, circumstances would show. In
either case, Maxime was well aware that his title, his reputation as
a man of the world, and his masterly power of initiating them into
the difficult and elegant mysteries of Parisian society were powerful
reasons to bind the two women to him, not to speak of their gratitude
for the political success of Monsieur Beauvisage of which he was the
author.

But however all this might be, his matrimonial campaign offered one very
serious difficulty. The consent of old Grevin would have to be obtained,
and he was not a man to allow Cecile to be married without investigating
to its depths the whole past of a suitor. This inquiry made, was it not
to be feared that the thirty years' stormy biography of a roue would
seem to the cautious old man a poor security for the future?

However, the species of governmental mission with which Monsieur
de Trailles appeared in Arcis might seem to be an offset and even a
condonation that would neutralize the effect of such disclosures. By
getting the Comte de Gondreville to confide the news of that mission to
old Grevin before it was publicly made known, he had flattered the old
man's vanity and obtained a certain foothold in his mind. Moreover, he
determined, when the time came, to forestall the old notary's distrust
by seeming to distrust himself, and to propose, as a precaution
against his old habits of extravagance, to introduce a clause into the
marriage-contract providing for the separation of property and settling
the wife's fortune upon herself. In this way he gave security against
any return to his old habits of prodigality. As for himself, it was his
affair to obtain such empire over his wife by the power of sentiment
that he could recover practically the marital power of which the
contract dispossessed him.

At first nothing occurred to contradict the wisdom and clearsightedness
of all these intentions. The Beauvisage candidacy being made public took
fire like a train of gunpowder, and Monsieur de Trailles was able to
feel such assurance of the success o