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” ‘How well we understand each other!’ quoth she.

“Even as she uttered those bewildering sweet words, I caught sight of something in her belt, the corner of a little note thrust sidewise into it; but I did not need that indication to tell me that Tullia’s fantastic conduct was referable to occult causes. Woman, in my opinion, is the most logical of created beings, the child alone excepted. In both we behold a sublime phenomenon, the unvarying triumph of one dominant, all-excluding thought. The child’s thought changes every moment; but while it possesses him, he acts upon it with such ardor that others give way before him, fascinated by the ingenuity, the persistence of a strong desire. Woman is less changeable, but to call her capricious is a stupid insult. Whenever she acts, she is always swayed by one dominant passion; and wonderful it is to see how she makes that passion the very centre of her world.

“Tullia was irresistible; she twisted du Bruel round her fingers, the sky grew blue again, the evening was glorious. And ingenious writer of plays as he is, he never so much as saw that his wife had buried a trouble out of sight.

” ‘Such is life, my dear fellow,’ he said to me, ‘ups and downs and contrasts.’

” ‘Especially life off the stage,’ I put in.

” ‘That is just what I mean,’ he continued. ‘Why, but for these violent emotions, one would be bored to death! Ah! that woman has the gift of rousing me.’

“We went to the Varietes after dinner; but before we left the house I slipped into du Bruel’s room, and on a shelf among a pile of waste papers found the copy of the /Petites-Affiches/, in which, agreeably to the reformed law, notice of the purchase of the house was inserted. The words stared me in the face–‘At the request of Jean Francois du Bruel and Claudine Chaffaroux, his wife—-‘ /Here/ was the explanation of the whole matter. I offered my arm to Claudine, and allowed the guests to descend the stairs in front of us. When we were alone–‘If I were La Palferine,’ I said, ‘I would not break an appointment.’

“Gravely she laid her finger on her lips. She leant on my arm as we went downstairs, and looked at me with almost something like happiness in her eyes because I knew La Palferine. Can you see the first idea that occurred to her? She thought of making a spy of me, but I turned her off with the light jesting talk of Bohemia.

“A month later, after a first performance of one of du Bruel’s plays, we met in the vestibule of the theatre. It was raining; I went to call a cab. We had been delayed for a few minutes, so that there were no cabs in sight. Claudine scolded du Bruel soundly; and as we rolled through the streets (for she set me down at Florine’s), she continued the quarrel with a series of most mortifying remarks.

” ‘What is this about?’ I inquired.

” ‘Oh, my dear fellow, she blames me for allowing you to run out for a cab, and thereupon proceeds to wish for a carriage.’

” ‘As a dancer,’ said she, ‘I have never been accustomed to use my feet except on the boards. If you have any spirit, you will turn out four more plays or so in a year; you will make up your mind that succeed they must, when you think of the end in view, and that your wife will not walk in the mud. It is a shame that I should have to ask for it. You ought to have guessed my continual discomfort during the five years since I married you.’

” ‘I am quite willing,’ returned du Bruel. ‘But we shall ruin ourselves.’

” ‘If you run into debt,’ she said, ‘my uncle’s money will clear it off some day.’