t He attempted to manage and to
whose manufacture He had given personal attention.

Caroline is very willing to sting Adolphe at all hours, but this
privilege of letting a wasp off now and then upon one's consort (the
legal term), is exclusively reserved to the wife. Adolphe is a monster
if he starts off a single fly at Caroline. On her part, it is a
delicious joke, a new jest to enliven their married life, and one
dictated by the purest intentions; while on Adolphe's part, it is a
piece of cruelty worthy a Carib, a disregard of his wife's heart, and
a deliberate plan to give her pain. But that is nothing.

"So you are really in love with Madame de Fischtaminel?" Caroline
asks. "What is there so seductive in the mind or the manners of the
spider?"

"Why, Caroline--"

"Oh, don't undertake to deny your eccentric taste," she returns,
checking a negation on Adolphe's lips. "I have long seen that you
prefer that Maypole [Madame de Fischtaminel is thin] to me. Very well!
go on; you will soon see the difference."

Do you understand? You cannot suspect Caroline of the slightest
inclination for Monsieur Deschars, a low, fat, red-faced man, formerly
a notary, while you are in love with Madame de Fischtaminel! Then
Caroline, the Caroline whose simplicity caused you such agony,
Caroline who has become familiar with society, Caroline becomes acute
and witty: you have two gadflies instead of one.

The next day she asks you, with a charming air of interest, "How are
you coming on with Madame de Fischtaminel?"

When you go out, she says: "Go and drink something calming, my dear."
For, in their anger with a rival, all women, duchesses even, will use
invectives, and even venture into the domain of Billingsgate; they
make an offensive weapon of anything and everything.

To try to convince Caroline that she is mistaken and that you are
indifferent to Madame de Fischtaminel, would cost you dear. This is a
blunder that no sensible man commits; he would lose his power and
spike his own guns.

Oh! Adolphe, you have arrived unfortunately at that season so
ingeniously called the _Indian Summer of Marriage_.

You must now--pleasing task!--win your wife, your Caroline, over
again, seize her by the waist again, and become the best of husbands
by trying to guess at things to please her, so as to act according to
her whims instead of according to your will. This is the whole
question henceforth.

HARD L