will even ask him to lift the omelette gently so that the rhum may
be poured all over it until the whole of the alcohol contained in the
liquor is burned out.

This _omelette au rhum_ is a fairly good symbol of matrimony.

In the earliest stage of married life the eggs have just been broken,
beaten, and strewn with sugar, a light has been set, and everything is
burning and perfectly beautiful. The young partakers of the matrimonial
repast are intoxicated with their new life, their new emotions, their
new sensations; they require no indulgence toward each other, no
special cleverness or diplomacy to please each other; there are no
concessions to make--neither of them can go or do wrong; the flame burns
of itself.

I do not mean to say that the flame can be kept burning for ever and
ever--alas! no, not any more than life can be made to eternally animate
your body. The flame must go out one day, as some illness must one day
end your life. But, just as hygiene teaches how to keep our good health
prolonged by precautions of all sorts, just so does common-sense, aided
by diplomacy and skill, help us to keep alive the flame of love between
the man and the woman who have kindled it.

And let no woman accuse me of manly conceit if I say that, clever and
attentive as the man must be, the woman has to be more clever and
attentive still, and that simply because it is a fact--an uncontradicted
fact (call it psychological if you like, or physiological if you
prefer)--that the love or passion of a woman goes on naturally
increasing in married life, whereas that of a man goes on just as
gradually and steadily decreasing.

In marriage the flame of love has been known to keep long alive through
the intelligence of the wife, and even without any effort in that
direction on the part of the husband; but the contrary has never been
known to be successful.

Woman is a divine delicacy who has to tempt the appetite of man; but the
most exquisite delicacy may become insipid if served every day with the
eternally same sauce. This is plain common-sense, and let me tell you
this: that no married life (not one) has a shadow of chance to be happy
for long unless the woman clearly understands and quickly realizes that,
if moral duties are the same for men and women, Nature has made their
temperaments absolutely different.

CHAPTER IX

COQUETRY IN MATRIMONY

No coquetry in matrimony? Who is the Philistine who dares utter such
blasp