hatever she likes, and asking her advice in every circumstance and
on every contingency. As this delusive liberty has entirely deceived
a creature so high-minded as she is, I have taken pains to stop at no
sacrifice which would convince Madame de V----- that she is the freest
woman in Paris; and, in order to attain this end, I take care not to
commit those gross political blunders into which our ministers so often
fall."

"I can see you," said I, "when you wish to cheat your wife out of some
right granted her by the charter, I can see you putting on a mild and
deliberate air, hiding your dagger under a bouquet of roses, and as
you plunge it cautiously into her heart, saying to her with a friendly
voice, 'My darling, does it hurt?' and she, like those on whose toes you
tread in a crowd, will probably reply, 'Not in the least.'"

He could not restrain a laugh and said:

"Won't my wife be astonished at the Last Judgment?"

"I scarcely know," I replied, "whether you or she will be most
astonished."

The jealous man frowned, but his face resumed its calmness as I added:

"I am truly grateful, sir, to the chance which has given me the pleasure
of your acquaintance. Without the assistance of your remarks I should
have been less successful than you have been in developing certain ideas
which we possess in common. I beg of you that you will give me leave to
publish this conversation. Statements which you and I find pregnant with
high political conceptions, others perhaps will think characterized by
more or less cutting irony, and I shall pass for a clever fellow in the
eyes of both parties."

While I thus tried to express my thanks to the viscount (the first
husband after my heart that I had met with), he took me once more
through his apartments, where everything seemed to be beyond criticism.

I was about to take leave of him, when opening the door of a little
boudoir he showed me a room with an air which seemed to say, "Is there
any way by which the least irregularity should occur without my seeing
it?"

I replied to this silent interrogation by an inclination of the
head, such as guests make to their Amphytrion when they taste some
exceptionally choice dish.

"My whole system," he said to me in a whisper, "was suggested to me
by three words which my father heard Napoleon pronounce at a crowded
council of state, when divorce was the subject of conversation.
'Adultery,' he exclaimed, 'is merely a matter of opportuni