give up the whole world for you, gladly; but
it is very selfish of you to ask my whole after-life of me for a moment
of pleasure. Come, now! are you not happy?" she added, holding out her
hand; and certainly in her careless toilette the sight of her afforded
consolations to her lover, who made the most of them.

Sometimes from policy, to keep her hold on a man whose ardent passion
gave her emotions unknown before, sometimes in weakness, she suffered
him to snatch a swift kiss; and immediately, in feigned terror, she
flushed red and exiled Armand from the sofa so soon as the sofa became
dangerous ground.

"Your joys are sins for me to expiate, Armand; they are paid for by
penitence and remorse," she cried.

And Montriveau, now at two chairs' distance from that aristocratic
petticoat, betook himself to blasphemy and railed against Providence.
The Duchess grew angry at such times.

"My friend," she said drily, "I do not understand why you decline to
believe in God, for it is impossible to believe in man. Hush, do not
talk like that. You have too great a nature to take up their Liberal
nonsense with its pretension to abolish God."

Theological and political disputes acted like a cold douche on
Montriveau; he calmed down; he could not return to love when the Duchess
stirred up his wrath by suddenly setting him down a thousand miles away
from the boudoir, discussing theories of absolute monarchy, which she
defended to admiration. Few women venture to be democrats; the attitude
of democratic champion is scarcely compatible with tyrannous feminine
sway. But often, on the other hand, the General shook out his mane,
dropped politics with a leonine growling and lashing of the flanks, and
sprang upon his prey; he was no longer capable of carrying a heart and
brain at such variance for very far; he came back, terrible with love,
to his mistress. And she, if she felt the prick of fancy stimulated to
a dangerous point, knew that it was time to leave her boudoir; she came
out of the atmosphere surcharged with desires that she drew in with
her breath, sat down to the piano, and sang the most exquisite songs
of modern music, and so baffled the physical attraction which at times
showed her no mercy, though she was strong enough to fight it down.

At such times she was something sublime in Armand's eyes; she was not
acting, she was genuine; the unhappy lover was convinced that she loved
him. Her egoistic resistance deluded him into a