Six months afterwards I heard of his marriage with a very amiable woman. I hate those very amiable women. Poor Percival! I should have been a very happy woman, I fancy, if I had married you—for I believe you were the only man who ever really loved me; but all that is over now!—Where were we? O, I married my Lord Delacour, knowing him to be a fool, and believing that, for this reason, I should find no trouble in governing him. But what a fatal mistake!—a fool, of all animals in the creation, is the most difficult to govern. We set out in the fashionable world with a mutual desire to be as extravagant as possible. Strange, that with this similarity of taste we could never agree!—strange, that this similarity of taste was the cause of our perpetual quarrels! During the first year of our marriage, I had always the upper hand in these disputes, and the last word; and I was content. Stubborn as the brute was, I thought I should in time break him in. From the specimens you have seen, you may guess that I was even then a tolerable proficient in the dear art of tormenting. I had almost gained my point, just broken my lord’s heart, when one fair morning I unluckily told his man Champfort that he knew no more how to cut hair than a sheep-shearer. Champfort, who is conceit personified, took mortal offence at this; and the devil, who is always at hand to turn anger into malice, put it into Champfort’s head to put it into my lord’s head, that the world thought—‘My lady governed him.’ My lord took fire. They say the torpedo, the coldest of cold creatures, sometimes gives out a spark—I suppose when electrified with anger. The next time that innocent I insisted upon my Lord Delacour’s doing or not doing—I forget which—the most reasonable thing in the world, my lord turns short round, and answers—‘My Lady Delacour, I am not a man to be governed by a wife.’—And from that time to this the words, ‘I am not a man to be governed by a wife,’ have been written in his obstinate face, as all the world who can read the human countenance may see. My dear, I laugh; but even in the midst of laughter there is sadness. But you don’t know what it is—I hope you never may—to have an obstinate fool for a bosom friend.

“I at first flattered myself that my lord’s was not an inveterate, incurable malady: but from his obvious weakness, I might have seen that there was no hope; for cases of obstinacy are always dangerous in proportion to the weakness of the patient. My lord’s case was desperate. Kill or cure was my humane or prudent maxim. I determined to try the poison of jealousy, by way of an alterative. I had long kept it in petto as my ultimate remedy. I fixed upon a proper subject—a man with whom I thought that I could coquette to all eternity, without any danger to myself—a certain Colonel Lawless, as empty a coxcomb as you would wish to see. The world, said I to myself, can never be so absurd as to suspect Lady Delacour with such a man as this, though her lord may, and will; for nothing is too absurd for him to believe. Half my theory proved just; that is saying a great deal for any theory. My lord swallowed the remedy that I had prepared for him with an avidity and a bonhommie which it did me good to behold; my remedy operated beyond my most sanguine expectations. The poor man was cured of his obstinacy, and became stark mad with jealousy. Then indeed I had some hopes of him; for a madman can be managed, a fool cannot. In a month’s time I made him quite docile. With a face longer than the weeping philosopher’s, he came to me one morning, and assured me, ‘he would do everything I pleased, provided I would consult my own honour and his, and give up Colonel Lawless.’

“‘Give up!’—I could hardly forbear laughing at the expression. I replied, ‘that as long as my lord treated me with becoming respect, I had never in thought or deed given him just cause of complaint; but that I was not a woman to be insulted, or to be kept, as I had hitherto been, in leading-strings by a husband.’ My lord, flattered as I meant he should be with the idea that it was possible he should be suspected of keeping a wife in leading-strings, fell to making protestations—‘He hoped his future conduct would prove,’ etc. Upon this hint, I gave the reins to my imagination, and full drive I went into a fresh career of extravagance: if I were checked, it was an insult, and I began directly to talk of leading-strings. This ridiculous game I played successfully enough for some time, till at length, though naturally rather slow at calculation, he actually discovered, that if we lived at the rate of twenty thousand a year, and had only ten thousand a year to spend, we should in due time have nothing left.