"The English coldness, and the soft, dove-like smile, with which she appeared in society, and the half-bored and half-ironical manner in which she accepted the homage of her admirers, were merely a mask. When she was alone with a person, an entirely different and much more adventurous character made its appearance; a seductive, melancholy, and yielding softness--which, however, changed at once into the harshest coldness the moment he who had been encouraged by it began to grow warmer, and attempted to seize the whole hand by means of the little finger she held out to him. She would thrust back any such deluded being into his place with the most cutting irony, and from that moment would treat him with pitiless disfavor, without quite setting him free. "Several of my acquaintances had discovered this to their cost. They gave me such minute accounts of their disgraceful defeats that I recognized in this woman a type of those perfectly cold-blooded coquettes who are--to the credit of the sex be it said--but rarely met with. The aversion I had felt toward this sea-monster, from the very first moment I had set eyes on her, was only the more confirmed by this; but, at the same time, the thought sprang up in me that it might be a good work, a meritorious act toward the whole male population of the island, if I could succeed in catching this fisher of men in her own net. "This purpose immediately became a fixed idea with me, actually as if my own honor were staked on the result. As I knew that I was absolutely proof against her charm, I proceeded to its execution without the faintest scruples. She had long regarded my reserve with amazement and anger; the consequence was that nothing was easier for me than to take advantage of the first chance meeting I could bring about, to conquer a place among her intimates. "I will refrain from inflicting upon you, scene for scene, an account of the wretched comedy that now began. The fact that I had to do with a skillful opponent aroused my ambition, and stung into life all the dormant obstinacy of my character, so that, at the end of a week--for she, too, staked all her pride upon finally seeing me at her feet like all the others--we two stood confronting each other almost alone; her former circle of admirers had withdrawn discomfited.