she has not the slightest intention ever to become his wife.
I have for some time noticed that she is possessed with a spirit of contradiction. In presence of people who have some certain definite convictions, she always takes the opposite side: this possibly in order to produce a more striking effect by the sharp contrast of tones. This attitude called up in my mind certain reminiscences from out of atavistic past. I began to talk about the gradual extinction of individual monogamistic women, of the eroticism which has soaked our democracies through and through, of the necessity for a class of courtesans, that the type of those women who care for something besides love intrigues may be preserved, and other nonsense of similar nature.
Gina only looked at me with a drowsy smile; but Madame Wildenhoff took up the cudgels with a sort of enthusiasm. A curious thing: her talk is not unlike Martha's, though their natures are very far asunder indeed.
"Men are endowed by nature with a sense of equilibrium: so long as they are in the prime of life, they live and love and laugh at plain and virtuous women. Car il faut que
