he first page, without knowing how to connect the prologue
with it.

"What should be my plan of campaign?

"Should I pose as an agreeable man, and try to captivate her attention
and good graces by the minute attentions and delicate flattery which
constitute what is classically called paying court? But D'Arzenac
had seized this role, and filled it in such a superior way that all
competition would be unsuccessful. I saw where this had led him. It
needed, in order to inflame this heart, a more active spark than foppish
gallantry; the latter flatters the vanity without reaching the heart.

"There was the passionate method--ardent, burning, fierce love. There
are some women upon whom convulsive sighs drawn from the depths of the
stomach, eyebrows frowning in a fantastic manner, and eyes in which only
the whites are to be seen and which seem to say: 'Love me, or I will
kill you!' produce a prodigious effect. I had myself felt the power
of this fascination while using it one day upon a softhearted blond
creature who thought it delightful to have a Blue-Beard for a lover.
But the drooping corners of Clemence's mouth showed at times an ironical
expression which would have cooled down even an Othello's outbursts.

"'She has brains, and she knows it,' said I to myself; 'shall I attack
her in that direction?' Women rather like such a little war of words; it
gives them an opportunity for displaying a mine of pretty expressions,
piquant pouts, fresh bursts of laughter, graceful peculiarities of which
they well know the effect. Should I be the Benedict to this Beatrice?
But this by-play would hardly fill the prologue, and I very much wished
to reach the epilogue.

"I passed in review the different routes that a lover might take to
reach his end; I recapitulated every one of the more or less infallible
methods of conquering female hearts; in a word, I went over my tactics
like a lieutenant about to drill a battalion of recruits. When I had
ended I had made no farther advance than before.

"'To the devil with systems!' exclaimed I; 'I will not be so foolish as
wilfully to adopt the role of roue when I feel called upon to play the
plain role of true lover. Let those who like play the part of Lovelace!
As for myself, I will love; upon the whole, that is what pleases best.'
And I jumped headlong into the torrent without troubling myself as to
the place of landing.

"While I was thus scheming my attack, Madame de Bergenheim was upon