understand each other. Listen
to me," she went on, assuming a confidential tone. "I have been in
the way of seeing some of the superior men of our day. Those who have
married have for the most part chosen quite insignificant wives. Well,
those wives governed them, as the Emperor governs us; and if they were
not loved, they were at least respected. I like secrets--especially
those which concern women--well enough to have amused myself by seeking
the clue to the riddle. Well, my sweet child, those worthy women had the
gift of analyzing their husbands' nature; instead of taking fright, like
you, at their superiority, they very acutely noted the qualities they
lacked, and either by possessing those qualities, or by feigning to
possess them, they found means of making such a handsome display of them
in their husbands' eyes that in the end they impressed them. Also, I
must tell you, all these souls which appear so lofty have just a speck
of madness in them, which we ought to know how to take advantage of. By
firmly resolving to have the upper hand and never deviating from that
aim, by bringing all our actions to bear on it, all our ideas, our
cajolery, we subjugate these eminently capricious natures, which, by
the very mutability of their thoughts, lend us the means of influencing
them."

"Good heavens!" cried the young wife in dismay. "And this is life. It is
a warfare----"

"In which we must always threaten," said the Duchess, laughing. "Our
power is wholly factitious. And we must never allow a man to despise
us; it is impossible to recover from such a descent but by odious
manoeuvring. Come," she added, "I will give you a means of bringing your
husband to his senses."

She rose with a smile to guide the young and guileless apprentice
to conjugal arts through the labyrinth of her palace. They came to
a back-staircase, which led up to the reception rooms. As Madame de
Carigliano pressed the secret springlock of the door she stopped,
looking at Augustine with an inimitable gleam of shrewdness and grace.
"The Duc de Carigliano adores me," said she. "Well, he dare not enter by
this door without my leave. And he is a man in the habit of commanding
thousands of soldiers. He knows how to face a battery, but before
me,--he is afraid!"

Augustine sighed. They entered a sumptuous gallery, where the painter's
wife was led by the Duchess up to the portrait painted by Theodore of
Mademoiselle Guillaume. On seeing it, Augustine utt