Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/103

 "They have not known how to deal with her," he thought to himself; and he sat down and played écarté, and allowed her to win, though he was one of the best players in Europe.

Fate had certainly been under the Incroyable bonnet of Madame Mila. For during the evening she suddenly recalled his villa, and announced her intention of coming to see it. In her little busy brain there was a clever notion that if she only could get her cousin once drawn into what the Duc would call a "petite faiblesse," she herself would hear no more lectures about Maurice; and lectures are always tiresome, especially when the lecturer has lent you several thousands, that it would be the height of inconvenience ever to be reminded to repay.

A woman who has "petites faiblesses" is usually impatient with one who has none; the one who has none is a kind of standing insolence. Women corrupt more women than men do. Lovelace does not hate chastity in women; but Lady Bellaston does with all her might.

Pretty Madame Mila was too good-natured and also too shallow to hate anything; but if