Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/93

 when we put up our first gas-lamp. The two I regret most of them all are Faunus and Picus; nowadays we make Faunus into a railway contractor, and shoot Picus for the market-stall."

"You are very romantic," said the Duc, with serene contempt. "It is an unfortunate quality; and I confess," he added, with a sigh, as if confessing a blemish in a favourite horse, "that, perhaps, she is a little deficient in the other extreme, a little too cold, a little too unimpressionable; there is absolutely no shadow of cause to suppose she ever felt the slightest emotion for anyone. That gives, perhaps, a certain hardness. It is not natural. 'Une petite faiblesse donne tant de charme.

"In a wife, one might dispense with the 'petite faiblesse' for anyone else," said Della Rocca, with a smile; the blemish did not seem much of a fault in his eyes.

"That is a romantic notion," said the Duc, with a little touch of disdain. "In real truth a woman is easier to manage who has had—a past. She knows what to expect. It is flattering to be