and close our ears to our admirers, and to escape them we plunge into
consideration of Violet's soul and her aptitudes, saying, and saying
well, that if polygamy thrives with Mohammedanism in the East, polyandry
has settled down in the West with Christianity, and that since Nora
slammed the door the practice of acquiring a share in a woman's life,
rather than insisting on the whole of it, has caught such firm root in
our civilization that it is no exaggeration to say that every married
woman to-day will admit she could manage two men better than her husband
could manage two wives. If we inquire still further, we submit, and
confidently, that every woman--saint or harlot, it matters not
which--would confess she would prefer to live with two men rather than
share her husband with another woman. All women are of one mind on this
subject; it is the one thing on which they all agree irrespective of
creed or class, so these remarks barely concern them; but should male
eyes fall on this page, and if in the pride of his heart he should cry
out, 'This is not so,' I would have him make application to his wife or
sister, and if he possess neither he may discover the truth in his own
mind. Let him ask himself if it could be otherwise, since our usage and
wont is that a woman shall prepare for the reception of visitors by
adorning her rooms with flowers and dressing herself in fine linen and
silk attire, and be to all men alike as they come and go. She must cover
all with winning glances, and beguile all with seductive eyes and foot,
and talk about love, though, perhaps she would prefer to think of one
who is far away. Men do not live under such restraint. A man may reserve
all his thoughts for his mistress, but the moment he leaves, his
mistress must begin to cajole the new-comer, however indifferent he may
be to her. The habit of her life is to cajole, to please, to inspire, if
possible, and if she be not a born coquette she becomes one, and takes
pleasure in her art, devoting her body and mind to it, reading only
books about love and lovers, singing songs of love, and seeking always
new scents and colours and modes of fascination. If lovers are away and
none calls, she abandons herself to dreams, and her imagination
furnishes quickly a new romance. Somebody she has half-forgotten rises
up in her memory, and she thinks that she could like him if he were to
come into her drawing-room now. It would be happiness indeed to walk
forward