all seductions. It was the lustre of this fidelity which
attracted Lady Dudley's attention. My resistance stimulated her passion.
What she chiefly desired, like many Englishwoman, was the spice of
singularity; she wanted pepper, capsicum, with her heart's food, just
as Englishmen need condiments to excite their appetite. The dull languor
forced into the lives of these women by the constant perfection of
everything about them, the methodical regularity of their habits, leads
them to adore the romantic and to welcome difficulty. I was wholly
unable to judge of such a character. The more I retreated to a cold
distance the more impassioned Lady Dudley became. The struggle, in
which she gloried, excited the curiosity of several persons, and this in
itself was a form of happiness which to her mind made ultimate triumph
obligatory. Ah! I might have been saved if some good friend had
then repeated to me her cruel comment on my relations with Madame de
Mortsauf.

"I am wearied to death," she said, "of these turtle-dove sighings."

Without seeking to justify my crime, I ask you to observe, Natalie, that
a man has fewer means of resisting a woman than she has of escaping him.
Our code of manners forbids the brutality of repressing a woman, whereas
repression with your sex is not only allurement to ours, but is imposed
upon you by conventions. With us, on the contrary, some unwritten law
of masculine self-conceit ridicules a man's modesty; we leave you the
monopoly of that virtue, that you may have the privilege of granting us
favors; but reverse the case, and man succumbs before sarcasm.

Though protected by my love, I was not of an age to be wholly insensible
to the triple seductions of pride, devotion, and beauty. When Arabella
laid at my feet the homage of a ball-room where she reigned a queen,
when she watched by glance to know if my taste approved of her dress,
and when she trembled with pleasure on seeing that she pleased me, I was
affected by her emotion. Besides, she occupied a social position where
I could not escape her; I could not refuse invitations in the diplomatic
circle; her rank admitted her everywhere, and with the cleverness all
women display to obtain what pleases them, she often contrived that
the mistress of the house should place me beside her at dinner. On such
occasions she spoke in low tones to my ear. "If I were loved like Madame
de Mortsauf," she said once, "I should sacrifice all." She did submit
he