ould not on any account disturb or change your
pretty little beliefs. It is your chief charm that you always believe
every-thing. How desperate would our case be if young ladies only
believed facts, and never accepted another person's assurance, but
preferred the evidence of their own eyes! They would have no illusions,
and a woman without illusions is the dreariest and most difficult thing
to manage possible."

"Thing?" protested Irais.

The Man of Wrath, usually so silent, makes up for it from time to time
by holding forth at unnecessary length. He took up his stand now with
his back to the fire, and a glass of Glubwein in his hand. Minora had
hardly heard his voice before, so quiet had he been since she came, and
sat with her pencil raised, ready to fix for ever the wisdom that should
flow from his lips.

"What would become of poetry if women became so sensible that they
turned a deaf ear to the poetic platitudes of love? That love does
indulge in platitudes I suppose you will admit." He looked at Irais.

"Yes, they all say exactly the same thing," she acknowledged.

"Who could murmur pretty speeches on the beauty of a common sacrifice,
if the listener's want of imagination was such as to enable her only to
distinguish one victim in the picture, and that one herself?"

Minora took that down word for word,--much good may it do her.

"Who would be brave enough to affirm that if refused he will die, if
his assurances merely elicit a recommendation to diet himself, and take
plenty of outdoor exercise? Women are responsible for such lies, because
they believe them. Their amazing vanity makes them swallow flattery so
gross that it is an insult, and men will always be ready to tell the
precise number of lies that a woman is ready to listen to. Who indulges
more recklessly in glowing exaggerations than the lover who hopes, and
has not yet obtained? He will, like the nightingale, sing with unceasing
modulations, display all his talent, untiringly repeat his
sweetest notes, until he has what he wants, when his song, like the
nightingale's, immediately ceases, never again to be heard."

"Take that down," murmured Irais aside to Minora--unnecessary advice,
for her pencil was scribbling as fast as it could.

"A woman's vanity is so immeasurable that, after having had ninety-nine
object-lessons in the difference between promise and performance and the
emptiness of pretty speeches, the beginning of the hundredth will find