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134 a monomania, a fixed idea; and naturally this case is not an exception."

He was always going into the shop. "We talk it over," he said. "She can't make up her mind."

"I can imagine the difficulty," I answered.

"She says it's a great change."

"I can also imagine that."

"I never see the husband," said Sanguinetti. "He is always away with his duchesses. But she talks it over with him. At first he wouldn't listen to it."

"Naturally."

"He said it would be an irreparable loss. But I am in hopes he will come round. He can get on very well with the other."

"The other?—the little dark one? She is not nearly so pretty."

"Of course not. But she isn't bad in her way. I really think," said Sanguinetti, "that he will come round. If he does not, we will do without his consent, and take the consequences. He will not be sorry, after all, to have the money."

You may be sure that I felt plenty of surprise at the business-like tone in which Sanguinetti discussed this unscrupulous project of becoming the "possessor" of another man's wife. There was certainly no hypocrisy about it: he had quite passed beyond the stage at which it is deemed needful to