souls of those immense fields of womanliness, and renounce to our own detriment the glamour of frivolity and of frailty. There must be a thorough fusion ; and it is only by such levelling down that we shall arrive at the synthesis of womanhood: a new type, a complete type, in which the only difference observable will be those of individuals, not of avocations."
"All that's very fine, but where are you taking me?"
"I am coming to that. I am just paying a formal visit to an excourtesan, a Mme. Wieloleska—formerly Mary tout court, for I don't know her family name. And I absolutely want you to come along: with me."
"But … is she possible?"
"Quite; you may believe me. She takes everything as a matter of course, and will be much pleased to receive you. … Only you will have to behave exactly as if she were Wieloleski's real wife."
"What? then they are not married?"
"The idea! The man has a wife and five children somewhere down in the country. … And that woman has got such a hold on him that he won't stir so much as one step
