of a vastly different mettle. She is a woman; not a doll. She is
flesh and blood; not sawdust, powder, and vermilion. She has a
heart and a will; not a spirit corrupted by vanity and licence."

La Fosse burst into a laugh.

"Hark! O, hark!" he cried, "to the apostle of the chaste!"

"Saint Gris!" exclaimed another. "This good Chatellerault has
lost both heart and head to her."

Chatellerault glanced at the speaker with an eye in which anger
smouldered.

"You have said it," I agreed. "He has fallen her victim, and so
his vanity translates her into a compound of perfections. Does
such a woman as you have described exist, Comte? Bah! In a
lover's mind, perhaps, or in the pages of some crack-brained
poet's fancies; but nowhere else in this dull world of ours."

He made a gesture of impatience.

"You have been clumsy, Chatellerault," I insisted.

"You have lacked address. The woman does not live that is not to
be won by any man who sets his mind to do it, if only he be of her
station and have the means to maintain her in it or raise her to
a better. A woman's love, sir, is a tree whose root is vanity.
Your attentions flatter her, and predispose her to capitulate.
Then, if you but wisely choose your time to deliver the attack, and