, colorless, and indifferent? I cannot
control my heart!"

"So much the worse, sweet child. But I fancy I know all your story.
In the first place, if your husband is unfaithful to you, understand
clearly that I am not his accomplice. If I was anxious to have him in my
drawing-room, it was, I own, out of vanity; he was famous, and he went
nowhere. I like you too much already to tell you all the mad things he
has done for my sake. I will only reveal one, because it may perhaps
help us to bring him back to you, and to punish him for the audacity of
his behavior to me. He will end by compromising me. I know the world
too well, my dear, to abandon myself to the discretion of a too superior
man. You should know that one may allow them to court one, but marry
them--that is a mistake! We women ought to admire men of genius, and
delight in them as a spectacle, but as to living with them? Never.--No,
no. It is like wanting to find pleasure in inspecting the machinery of
the opera instead of sitting in a box to enjoy its brilliant illusions.
But this misfortune has fallen on you, my poor child, has it not? Well,
then, you must try to arm yourself against tyranny."

"Ah, madame, before coming in here, only seeing you as I came in, I
already detected some arts of which I had no suspicion."

"Well, come and see me sometimes, and it will not be long before you
have mastered the knowledge of these trifles, important, too, in their
way. Outward things are, to fools, half of life; and in that matter more
than one clever man is a fool, in spite of all his talent. But I dare
wager you never could refuse your Theodore anything!"

"How refuse anything, madame, if one loves a man?"

"Poor innocent, I could adore you for your simplicity. You should know
that the more we love the less we should allow a man, above all, a
husband, to see the whole extent of our passion. The one who loves most
is tyrannized over, and, which is worse, is sooner or later neglected.
The one who wishes to rule should----"

"What, madame, must I then dissimulate, calculate, become false, form an
artificial character, and live in it? How is it possible to live in such
a way? Can you----" she hesitated; the Duchess smiled.

"My dear child," the great lady went on in a serious tone, "conjugal
happiness has in all times been a speculation, a business demanding
particular attention. If you persist in talking passion while I am
talking marriage, we shall soon cease to