alzac, of Alexandre Dumas the younger, and of all the greatest
dissectors of the human heart; she will learn nothing. The mind of a
woman is a mixture of obstinacy and prejudice. When she reads the
accounts of the proceedings of the Divorce Court, she exclaims of the
respondent, if she be a woman: 'Poor thing! romantic, I suppose.' When
the respondent is a man, she dismisses the whole thing with: 'Man's a
beast.' She sometimes sympathizes with a co-respondent.

What women admire particularly in men is indulgence, the spirit of
forgiveness, magnanimity. Their hero is the man of the play who, when
his wife, falling at his feet, shrieks, 'I am not guilty!' takes her
gently by the hand, embraces her, and whispers softly in her ears, like
Dr. Primrose to his misguided daughter: 'And if thou wert, child, am I
not here to protect thee, to comfort thee?' And, true enough, the
situation is pathetic, thoroughly human, and that husband's role is
sublime; but in real life not one woman out of a thousand would play
that part.

For, even when woman forgives, it is out of consideration for her
children--for her own sake, as it were, in order to avoid a scandal, an
open avowal of the situation. She may forgive, but she will not forget.
It is true that in Mr. Arthur Pinero's beautiful play, 'The
Profligate,' the wife forgives, and tells her husband she will help him
bear it. But the offence was committed before the marriage. She has not
been personally wronged or deceived, except in her estimation of the
man she has married. Therefore she may forgive, although I do not envy
that man's future in matrimonial life.

Conclusion: If a man should be unfortunate enough to deviate from the
path of virtue after entering the holy estate of matrimony, let him
follow the advice given by a great French jurisconsult to all prisoners
about to appear before their judges: 'Never confess.' Only a very lofty
woman will take him by the hand and, putting in the scales all he has
done for her in life, will say: 'It leans on the right side.' A _rara
avis_ this woman.

CHAPTER XV

CAN GRATITUDE ENGENDER LOVE?

Expecting gratitude is asking for the price of a service--Love
keeps out of it.

Has love anything to do with gratitude? In other words, does gratitude
engender love? No; to kill a woman's love for him a man has only to
keep on reminding her of what he has done to earn her gratitude, and by
the same means a woman will obtain the