The old lady went on to expound the science of coquetry. I had read of the sex game, as it is played in the _grand monde_, but I had never supposed that the players were as conscious and deliberate as this veteran expert. She even used the language of battle: “A woman’s shield, my child, is her innocence; her sharpest weapon is her _naïveté_. The way to disarm a man’s suspicions is to tell him what you’re doing to him—then you’re sure he won’t believe it!” She would go into minute details of these Amazonian arts: how to beguile a man, how to promise to marry him without really promising, how to keep him at the proper temperature by judicious applications of jealousy. Nor was this sex war to stop after the wedding ceremony—when most women foolishly laid down their weapons. A woman must sleep in her armor, according to Lady Dee. She must never let her husband know how much she loved him, she must make him think of her as something rare and unattainable, she must keep him in a state where her smile was the greatest thing in life to him. Said the old lady, gravely: “The women of our family are famous for henpecking their husbands—they don’t even take the trouble to hide it. I’ve heard your grandfather, the General, say that it was all right for a man to be henpecked, if only it was by the right hen.” A training, you perceive, of a decidedly worldly character; and yet there was nothing upon which Sylvia’s relatives laid more stress than the preserving of what they called her “innocence.” There were wild people in this part of the world—high-spirited and hot-tempered, hard drinkers and fast livers; there were deeds of violence, and strange and terrible tales that you might hear. But when these tales had anything to do with sex, they were carefully kept from Sylvia’s ears. Only once had this rule been broken—an occasion which made a great impression upon the child. The daughter of one of the neighboring families had eloped, and the dreadful rumor was whispered that she had traveled in a sleeping-car with the man, and been married at the end of the journey, instead of at the beginning. And there was Uncle Mandeville, the youngest of the Major’s brothers—half drunk, though Sylvia did not know it—pacing the veranda and discussing the offending bridegroom. “He should have been shot!” cried Mandeville. “The damned scoundrel, he should have been shot like a dog!” And suddenly he paused before the startled child. He was a giant of a man, and his voice had the power of a church-organ. He placed his hands upon Sylvia’s shoulders, pronouncing in solemn tones, “Little girl, I want you to know that I will protect the honor of the women of our family with my life! Do you understand me, little girl?”