in. From the specimens you have seen, you may guess that I was even then
a tolerable proficient in the dear art of _tormenting_. I had almost
gained my point, just broken my lord's heart, when one fair morning I
unluckily told his man Champfort that he knew no more how to cut hair
than a sheep-shearer. Champfort, who is conceit personified, took mortal
offence at this; and the devil, who is always at hand to turn anger into
malice, put it into Champfort's head to put it into my lord's head, that
the world thought--'_My lady governed him_.' My lord took fire. They say
the torpedo, the coldest of cold creatures, sometimes gives out a
spark--I suppose when electrified with anger. The next time that
innocent I insisted upon my Lord Delacour's doing or not doing--I forget
which--the most reasonable thing in the world, my lord turns short
round, and answers--'My Lady Delacour, I am not a man to be governed by
a wife.'--And from that time to this the words, 'I am not a man to be
governed by a wife,' have been written in his obstinate face, as all the
world who can read the human countenance may see. My dear, I laugh; but
even in the midst of laughter there is sadness. But you don't know what
it is--I hope you never may--to have an obstinate fool for a
bosom friend.

"I at first flattered myself that my lord's was not an inveterate,
incurable malady: but from his obvious weakness, I might have seen that
there was no hope; for cases of obstinacy are always dangerous in
proportion to the weakness of the patient. My lord's case was desperate.
Kill or cure was my humane or prudent maxim. I determined to try the
poison of jealousy, by way of an alterative. I had long kept it in petto
as my ultimate remedy. I fixed upon a proper subject--a man with whom I
thought that I could coquette to all eternity, without any danger to
myself--a certain Colonel Lawless, as empty a coxcomb as you would wish to
see. The world, said I to myself, can never be so absurd as to suspect