Thus they live, these two, practically separate, though always meeting at dinner-time. He, practising little deceptions which she always suspects or detects but never exposes, for fear he should discontinue them and bore her instead; she, simulating occasional moods of sentiment and even affection, and dexterously playing upon the most sensitive chords of his nature, when she fancies it necessary to preserve her empire over him, and cozen him into accordance with her wishes. She is so absolute in her desire for power and ascendancy that she would battle hard to retain the admiration of even a husband, how ever little she might really value it. Nevertheless they go their separate ways pleasantly, and if they never talk of happiness, perhaps, under the circumstances, their unconventional but easy and casual philosophy of matrimony is preferable to the perpetual bickerings, or heart-breaking suppression of feelings, which so often mar the more domestic households. But I fear I may be conveying an impression that Mrs. Neuralys is not all she should be, which would be unjust—to say the least of it. What can I say to correct any such impression? Let me catalogue her virtues. However tastes may differ, no one can deny that she is piquantly pretty. Ask all the best photographers in London, ask at least one of our most artistic young painters. Look round his studio-walls, they will testify extensively to her facial charms. Then, how she dresses—why, Venus herself might have dressed so, had she been born in the fashion. In her monetary dealings she is liberal to a fault, and, as her tradespeople and dressmakers, who all adore her, will tell you, the fault is always on the right side—she never inquires the cost of anything. And so affable too, she frequently drinks afternoon-tea with her milliner, who is of course socially her equal. Indeed I am not certain that Mrs. Neuralys does not hanker after adopting some such profession herself, by way of a new experience, and, if she did, I am sure her bonnet-shop would be the most alluring boudoir in London. But, intellectually, she is really above this kind of thing. She has not read Schopenhauer and all the latest English and foreign “realists,” and pessimistic critics for nothing. She is alive to every new “movement” in art, literature, religion or the drama, and as long as it is new and provocative of opposition from the advocates of the traditional, it will be sure of her ardent and aggressive partisanship. The very opposition will flatter her into thinking she is asserting her own individuality, for, of course, she forgets that she is only following a lead and running in a groove. Moreover she will think she is sincere in professing admiration for eccentric authors worshipped by experimental cliques, whereas if they were popular, and were accepted by the “plain man” of the _Times_ and the _Nineteenth Century_, I doubt if she would concern herself with them, however good they might be. In