"If you cannot bear your troubles, you may be able to bear their remedies. You ought to have for Harry such a love as masters Time, and the infelicities of Time. Have you this love?" "Yes, I have." "You can bear to think of loving Harry and living with him eternally?" "I should be miserable if I thought death would separate us." "Good gracious, child! And yet you have suffered the word 'divorce' to pass your lips. Just remember that men do not marry women because they are very beautiful, or very clever, or very good, indeed; they generally marry them because there is 'something nice about them.' Now, let Harry always find there is 'something nice about you.' You do not complain of Harry to any one, do you?" "I have not, until this morning; nor have I listened to any report about him." "Quite right. To talk of matrimonial troubles is to burn the dirtiest chimney ever set on fire. But there are sins of omission as well as of commission. You have stayed at home too much. You ought to go out with Harry while his mood is to go out." "I cannot go with the set that Rose and he prefer." "You can go with my set. Harry must really be forgetting how you look in anything but tweed and China silk. Put away every appearance of being an injured wife. Be a happy wife. Let him always come into an atmosphere of good humor. No man can resist that." "Rose and Mrs. Filmer drop so many unkind words about me." "Drop kind ones about them. The incongruity will eventually strike him." "His family have always tried to make sorrow for me." "Of course. A wife's foes are to be found in her husband's family. Let them plot and plan, and you be sincere. Whatever is sincere invariably conquers. A week to-day we are going to have a grand dinner-party. Wear your wedding dress, and I have brought you my sapphires and diamonds. Dress your hair high. Dress to the utmost of your conception of what is splendid. Then march on Harry, and take him anew by storm. One-half of men's passion for pretty actresses is grounded on their picturesque dressing. If they saw the same girls in a housemaid's cotton gown and apron, they would not look at them." "Such a low side to touch Harry on!" "Oh, dear me! Can you build a marble palace without the rough wood scaffolding? Do but be bright and cheerful and handsome and patient, and my word for it! you will see how swiftly Harry will tire of meaner women. For the rapid transformation whereby carnal love is turned into carnal hatred is one of the most wonderful things to consider. Now mind, you are to conquer all before you next Thursday night!" So the invitation was formally sent, and Adriana announced her intention of accepting it. Harry was a trifle annoyed. He had grown accustomed to going out alone, and feeling a kind of safe repose in the idea of the wife watching on his hearthstone.