“Oh if you insist,” he returned lightly, “and are willing to bear the reflection my unfortunate remark seems to cast upon the sex, I was merely observing to my nephew, that the man who centered all his hopes upon a woman’s faith, was liable to disappointment. Even if he succeeded in marrying her there were still possibilities of his repenting any great sacrifice made in her behalf.”
“Indeed!” and for once the delicate cheek flushed deeper than its rouge. “And why do you say this?” she inquired, dropping her coquettish manner and flashing upon them both, the haughty and implacable woman Bertram had always believed her to be, notwithstanding her vagaries and fashion.
“Because I have seen much of life outside my own house,” her husband replied with undiminished courtesy; “and feel bound to warn any young man of his probable fate, who thinks to find nothing but roses and felicity beyond the gates of fashionable marriage.”
“Ah then, it was on general principles you were speaking,” she remarked with a soft laugh that undulated through an atmosphere suddenly grown too heavy for easy breathing. “I did not know; wives are so little apt to be appreciated in this world, Mr. Mandeville, I was afraid he might be giving you some homely advice founded upon personal experience.” And she moved towards their guest with that strange smile of hers which some called dangerous but which he had always regarded as oppressive.
She saw him drop his eyes, and smiled again, but in a different way. This woman, whom no one accused of anything worse than levity, hailed every tribute to her power, as a miser greets the glint of gold. With a turn of her large but elegant figure that in its slow swaying reminded you of some heavy tropical flower, hanging inert, intoxicated with its own fragrance, she dismissed at once the topic that had engaged them, and