I never guessed how much sneering provocation could reside in tones
usually so very soft and musical till I heard him answer, "I suppose you
_do_ differ with me. We probably both speak from experience. On one
point you are scarcely practical, though. You think you can frighten a
woman into propriety. Try it."

"Are you not too general in your strictures or encomiums?" I suggested,
wishing to relieve the awkwardness which ensued; "surely there are many
instances to the contrary. Take Lady Clanronald, for instance, married
to a man her elder by twenty years, and not very clever or agreeable, I
should think. No one ever breathed a whisper against her, and it has not
been through default of aspirants."

An evil smile curled round the old _roué's_ sensual mouth, radiating
even to the verge of the forest of his iron-gray whiskers.

"Clanronald not clever?" he replied. "The cleverest man I know. He knew
how his wife would be tempted, and he has taken the greatest pains to
encourage a counteracting influence--family pride. Don't you know she is
a Hautagne? It is a tradition with that race that their women never go
wrong--under a prince of the blood. None of these are available just
now, so she is still '_Une Madeleine, dans la puissance de son mari, et
dans l'impuissance de se repentir_.'"

It was worse than useless to argue with Fallowfield. All your own best
hits were turned aside by the target of his cynicism and unbelief, while
his sophistries and sarcasms often came home. Like old wounds, they
would begin to shoot and rankle in after years, just when it was most
important and profitable to forget them.