“Your cruelty to her Highness, for instance, which suddenly becomes consideration for her; your bad faith to monseigneur the archduke, which all in a moment becomes righteousness. But it is all one for the moral, which is your determination to have your way at any cost. I have no more to say, then--only this. I have warned you, and you will not be warned--therefore do not blame me for any consequences that may ensue. For me, I have my duty to my mistress, and that is enough. For you, if you are resolved to rush upon your doom, there is this piece of information, which is in truth open to all. Her Highness goes to-morrow to Colorno, whither the duke her father will follow her in the course of a few days. It is just possible, in the interval before he comes, that she may be tempted to visit Aquaviva’s gardens, of which she is so affolée--but I do not know. Au revoir, monsieur--I wish I could say adieu.” He would have detained her, to protest, to explain, to pay a glowing tribute to her friendship and generosity--but she would have none of it. “Thank me when you are out of the wood,” she said. “For the moment, if you value your own safety, hide deeper in it--that is my advice. We may be watched and observed at this instant, for all I know--” and, peremptorily bidding him stay where he was, she turned and hurried away. CHAPTER XXII. ANTICIPATION It is a mistake to suppose that it is the manly qualities in a man which invariably appeal most to women’s affections. Very often, indeed, it is their exact antitheses--indecision, dependence, helplessness--which excite in tender breasts the fondest response. Paradoxically, every woman is a mother before she is a virgin, else, save in foretasting the guerdon of love, could she never suffer the ordeal which is to qualify her for that reward. She becomes a mother by right of the test to which she has submitted, which is in truth the test of her capacity for cherishing the weakling, for nourishing, for protecting and for sympathising in all ways with its weakness. Wherefore, as she is the instinctive nurse of frailty, her affections turn more naturally to it than to the strength which is independent of her. There are women, of course, who would always rather be coerced by a brutal husband than consulted by an irresolute one. There are women, also, of the manly, tailor-made type, to whom a sick dog or horse appeals with fifty times the force of an ailing child. But I make bold to think that they are in the minority, and that the mass of the sex is inclined to be attracted more by the weak than by the strong qualities in men. For weakness may be lovable, while strength is only admirable; and a woman defrauded in her helpful instinct is a woman deprived of her essential meaning.