‘Let me tell you,’ she said, ‘if Isabel is not exactly beautiful, she is something much worse: _elle est pire_. She is fascinating. Now, mere prettiness is apt to get very _fade_ and insipid after a time--the monotony of marriage, you know. And if there is anyone so attractive as Isabel anywhere near, a man is terribly ready to forget mere prettiness.’ ‘Perhaps, but a gentleman does not forget his duty,’ answered Gundred, losing command of the situation for a moment. Minne-Adélaïde pursued her advantages accordingly. ‘Oh, well,’ she laughed, ‘if one only wants to hold one’s husband by his duty! And even a gentleman--what else is he but a man, as soon as his clothes are off? And they do show the strangest forgetfulness at times. _I_ could tell you stories.’ Gundred hated herself for permitting such a dialogue. Mrs. Mimburn seemed to have entrapped her. ‘Please don’t,’ she answered. ‘These things are not interesting.’ ‘You see,’ went on Minne-Adélaïde, ‘if one lets one’s self slide out of a man’s life, one is encouraging him to forget one--and to remember other people, which is worse. Now you--of course one can’t always fill one’s husband’s life, one can’t always talk to him, can one? Between ourselves, now, one can’t always understand him. And she does, this cousin of yours. And that may be all right, or, again, it may be all wrong.’ Thus baited, Gundred grew furious. Her colour came and went, her manner became neater, cooler, blander than ever. And yet she could say so little. Mrs. Mimburn’s darts had found the weak spot that she was hiding even from herself. Through all her anger at Minne-Adélaïde’s insolence, the dialogue had for her a fearful, poignant interest that forbade her to follow her own first angry instincts, and cut it off with a snub. ‘I think you are quite mistaken,’ she replied. ‘And, anyhow, I should always be glad to see my husband being amused--no matter who it was by.’ ‘Ah, you have the reckless unselfishness of the very young,’ answered Minne-Adélaïde intolerably. ‘That has wrecked so many marriages. “Trust nothing and nobody” ought to be one’s motto, and do all the amusing that may be necessary one’s self. It is safest in the long run--if one can do it, that is. However, you seem content to let someone else do it, and all I say is that I hope no harm will come of it. But when you want to take up your own position in your husband’s life again, you may find that someone else has filled it while you were ordering dinner and talking about the weather. It is even better, my dear, to bore your husband than to let him find that he can be kept amused all day and every day by someone else. I should get rid of the cousin, if I were you.’