The count remained.  Without paying any attention to the awkwardness which had succeeded the former military aplomb of his nephew, the count exercised during the whole evening his full powers as a charming conversationalist.  I had never before seen him so brilliant or so gracious.  We spoke a great deal about women.  The witticisms of our host were marked by the most exquisite refinement.  He made me forget that his hair was white, for he showed the brilliancy which belonged to a youthful heart, a gaiety which effaces the wrinkles from the cheek and melts the snow of wintry age.

The next day the nephew went away.  Even after the death of M. de Noce, I tried to profit by the intimacy of those familiar conversations in which women are sometimes caught off their guard to sound her, but I could never learn what impertinence the viscount had exhibited towards his aunt.  His insolence must have been excessive, for since that time Madame de Noce has refused to see her nephew, and up to the present moment never hears him named without a slight movement of her eyebrows.  I did not at once guess the end at which the Comte de Noce aimed, in inviting us to go shooting; but I discovered later that he had played a pretty bold game.

Nevertheless, if you happen at last, like M. de Noce, to carry off a decisive victory, do not forget to put into practice at once the system of blisters; and do not for a moment imagine that such tours de force are to be repeated with safety.  If that is the way you use your talents, you will end by losing caste in your wife’s estimation; for she will demand of you, reasonably enough, double what you would give her, and the time will come when you declare bankruptcy.  The human soul in its desires follows a sort of arithmetical progression, the end and origin of which are equally unknown.  Just as the opium-eater must constantly increase his doses in order to obtain the same result, so our mind, imperious as it is weak, desires that feeling, ideas and objects should go on ever increasing in size and in intensity.  Hence the necessity of cleverly distributing the interest in a dramatic work, and of graduating doses in medicine.  Thus you see, if you always resort to the employment of means like these, that you must accommodate such daring measures to many circumstances, and success will always depend upon the motives to which you appeal.

And finally, have you influence, powerful friends, an important post?  The last means I shall suggest cuts to the root of the evil.  Would you have the power to send your wife’s lover off by securing his promotion, or his change of residence by an exchange, if he is a military man?  You cut off by this means all communication between them; later on we will show you how to do it; for sublata causa tollitur effectus,—­Latin words which may be freely translated “there is no effect without a cause.”

Nevertheless, you feel that your wife may easily choose another lover; but in addition to these preliminary expedients, you will always have a blister ready, in order to gain time, and calculate how you may bring the affair to an end by fresh devices.