CHAPTER XXXVI
OF JEALOUSY—(continued)
Now for the woman suspected of inconstancy!
She leaves you, because you have discouraged crystallisation, but it is possible that in her heart you have habit to plead for you.
She leaves you, because she is too sure of you. You have killed fear, and there is nothing left to give birth to the little doubts of happy love. Just make her uneasy, and, above all, beware of the absurdity of protestations!
During all the time you have lived in touch with her, you will doubtless have discovered what woman, in society or outside it, she is most jealous or most afraid of. Pay court to that woman, but so far from blazoning it about, do your best to keep it secret, and do your best sincerely; trust to the eyes of anger to see everything and feel everything. The strong aversion you will have felt for several months to all women ought to make this easy.[1] Remember that in the position you are in, everything is spoiled by a show of passion: avoid seeing much of the woman you love, and drink champagne with the wits.
In order to judge of your mistress' love, remember:—
1. The more physical pleasure counts for in the basis of her love and in what formerly determined her to yield, the more prone it is to inconstancy, and, still more, to infidelity. This applies especially to love in which crystallisation has been favoured by the fire of sweet seventeen.
2. Two people in love are hardly ever equally in love:[2] passion-love has its phases, during which now one, now the other is more impassioned. Often, too, it is merely gallantry or vain love which responds to passion-love, and it is generally the woman who is carried away by passion. But whatever the love may be that either of them feels, directly one of them is jealous, he insists on the other fulfilling all the conditions of passion-love; vanity pretends to all the claims of a heart that feels.