The central figures of the more or less feministic novels considered above are not marked by unanimous sexual antipathy to the male. A number of them had husbands or lovers and bore children. Their common feature is rebellion against the domestic role imposed upon them in nineteenth-century society, and often their variance is merely one aspect of that rebellion. In contrast, the novels that follow have variance per se as their predominant theme, and the authors’ attitudes toward variance are equally disapproving. Fin de Siècle Dubut de Laforest’s second approach to the subject appeared in _La Femme d’Affaires_ (1890), a vertical section of Paris life as sensational as was _Mlle Tantale_ in the field of individual psychology. The title figure is a grasping Jewess, and her contrast to her Catholic daughter-in-law (almost the only irreproachable character in the book) would reward a student of religious and racial prejudice; however, neither of these women is directly concerned in the variant action. The latter involves a self-centered musical comedy star, bisexually promiscuous, and a lesbian amazon, Faustine, who supports her when necessary. Faustine, we learn, was expelled from a school at fifteen for corrupting its dormitory, and her subsequent excesses with a governess contributed to the latter’s early death from tuberculosis (cf. _Mlle Giraud_). She then tried a couple of husbands, and at the time of this tale’s action she still experiments with men—which is inexplicable since she never ceases to loathe heterosexual experience. She is violently jealous of her actress friend, especially of the latter’s connection with a fantastic titled Englishman who has turned circus clown. During an ether ‘drunk,’ Faustine surprises the two together and cuts out the woman’s tongue, thus destroying “the instrument of love.” No etiology is suggested for her variance except her amazonian build. The unsavory trio are apparently incorporated in the novel to illustrate the types to whom the Business Woman will rent apartments at sufficient profit, but the author devotes more space to them than such reason requires. It was more probably his own literary profits due to sensationalism that he had an eye on. His is the most specific reference thus far to the techniques of lesbian activity, a detail doubtless reflecting his clinical connections, and one seldom repeated in openly published literature.