You deal with some women with a whip--"
"You would whip me, I suppose?"
"Yes," he said quietly. "It would do you good, Madame. And with other
women otherwise. There are women who, if they are well frightened, will
not deceive you. And there are others who will not deceive you though
they are frightened. Madame de Tavannes is of the latter kind."
"Wait! Wait and see!" Madame cried in scorn.
"I am waiting."
"Yes! And whereas if you had come to me I could have told her that about
M. de Tignonville which would have surprised her, you will go on waiting
and waiting and waiting until one fine day you'll wake up and find Madame
gone, and--"
"Then I'll take a wife I can whip!" he answered, with a look which
apprised her how far she had carried it. "But it will not be you, sweet
cousin. For I have no whip heavy enough for your case."
CHAPTER XXI. SHE WOULD, AND WOULD NOT.
We noted some way back the ease with which women use one concession as a
stepping-stone to a second; and the lack of magnanimity, amounting almost
to unscrupulousness, which the best display in their dealings with a
retiring foe. But there are concessions which touch even a good woman's
conscience; and Madame de Tavannes, free by the tenure of a blow, and
with that exception treated from hour to hour with rugged courtesy,
shrank appalled before the task which confronted her.
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