Page:The Yellow Book - 03.djvu/84

 to see that it was just your own conduct in meeting your young man rather more than halfway, that did the trick—eh?' She looked at me with eyes brimming over with wisdom. 'You needn't be afraid, sir, I'll not speak of it. Mère Todevinn always made me promise to keep silence too. But of course I know it was the powder that worked the charm.'

"And to that belief the dear creature will stick to the last day of her life. Women are wonderful enigmas. Explain to them that tight-lacing displaces all the internal organs, and show them diagrams to illustrate your point, they smile sweetly, say, 'Oh, how funny!' and go out to buy their new stays half an inch smaller than their old ones. But tell them they must never pass a pin in the street for luck's sake, if it lies with its point towards them, and they will sedulously look for and pick up every such confounded pin they see. Talk to a woman of the marvels of science, and she turns a deaf ear, or refuses point-blank to believe you; yet she is absolutely all ear for any old wife's tale, drinks it greedily in, and never loses hold of it for the rest of her days."

"But does she?" said I; "that's the point in dispute, and though your story shows there's still a commendable amount of superstition in the Islands, I'm afraid if you were to come to London, you would not find sufficient to cover a threepenny-piece."

"Woman is woman all the world over," said Mauger sententiously, "no matter what mental garb happens to be in fashion at the time. Grattez la femme et vous trouvez la folle. For see here: if I had said to Mademoiselle Elsie, 'Well, you were in the wrong; it's your place to take the first step towards reconciliation,' she would have laughed in my face, or flung out of the shop in a rage. But because I sold her a little humbugging powder under the