"My dear Armand, why did you not tell me that the Duchess was a puzzle
to you? I would have given you a little advice which might have brought
your flirtation properly through. You must know, to begin with, that the
women of our Faubourg, like any other women, love to steep themselves in
love; but they have a mind to possess and not to be possessed. They have
made a sort of compromise with human nature. The code of their parish
gives them a pretty wide latitude short of the last transgression. The
sweets enjoyed by this fair Duchess of yours are so many venial sins
to be washed away in the waters of penitence. But if you had the
impertinence to ask in earnest for the moral sin to which naturally
you are sure to attach the highest importance, you would see the deep
disdain with which the door of the boudoir and the house would be
incontinently shut upon you. The tender Antoinette would dismiss
everything from her memory; you would be less than a cipher for her.
She would wipe away your kisses, my dear friend, as indifferently as she
would perform her ablutions. She would sponge love from her cheeks as
she washes off rouge. We know women of that sort--the thorough-bred
Parisienne. Have you ever noticed a grisette tripping along the street?
Her face is as good as a picture. A pretty cap, fresh cheeks, trim hair,
a guileful smile, and the rest of her almost neglected. Is not this true
to the life? Well, that is the Parisienne. She knows that her face is
all that will be seen, so she devotes all her care, finery, and vanity
to her head. The Duchess is the same; the head is everything with her.
She can only feel through her intellect, her heart lies in her brain,
she is a sort of intellectual epicure, she has a head-voice. We call
that kind of poor creature a Lais of the intellect. You have been taken
in like a boy. If you doubt it, you can have proof of it tonight, this
morning, this instant. Go up to her, try the demand as an experiment,
insist peremptorily if it is refused. You might set about it like the
late Marechal de Richelieu, and get nothing for your pains."

Armand was dumb with amazement.

"Has your desire reached the point of infatuation?"

"I want her at any cost!" Montriveau cried out despairingly.

"Very well. Now, look here. Be as inexorable as she is herself. Try to
humiliate her, to sting her vanity. Do _not_ try to move her heart,
nor her soul, but the woman's nerves and temperament, for she is both
ne