I treat my admirers harshly, but without any pretention to retain them.

Men call me a coquette, because they are vain enough to think I care for them.

Other women--Montalais, for instance--have allowed themselves to be influenced by flattery; they would be lost were it not for that most fortunate principle of instinct which urges them to change suddenly, and punish the man whose devotion they so recently accepted." "A very learned dissertation," said Montalais, in the tone of thorough enjoyment.
"It is odious!" murmured Louise.
"Thanks to that sort of coquetry, for, indeed, that is genuine coquetry," continued Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente; "the lover who, a little while since, was puffed up with pride, in a minute afterwards is suffering at every pore of his vanity and self-esteem.

He was, perhaps, already beginning to assume the airs of a conqueror, but now he retreats defeated; he was about to assume an air of protection towards us, but he is obliged to prostrate himself once more.

The result of all this is, that, instead of having a husband who is jealous and troublesome, free from restraint in his conduct towards us, we have a lover always trembling in our presence, always fascinated by our attractions, always submissive; and for this simple reason, that he finds the same woman never twice of the same mind.