Some had a shot at the strange conjecture, figuring her as tired of men in the end and challengeing him below--equally tired of his easy conquests of men since the glorious old times of the duelling saints.

By virtue of his one incorrigible weakness, which we know him to have as long as we have it ourselves: viz., the belief in her existence, she is to get the better of him.
Upon this point the experience of Captain Abrane has a value.

Livia was a follower of the Red and Black and the rounding ball in the person of the giant captain, through whom she received her succession of sweetly teasing thrills and shocks, as one of the adventurous company they formed together.

The place was known to him as the fair Philistine to another muscular hero; he had been shorn there before, and sent forth tottering, treating the friends he met as pillars to fall with him; and when the operation was done thoroughly, he pronounced himself refreshed by it, like a more sensible Samson, the cooler for his clipping.

Then it was that he relapsed undistractedly upon processes of his mind and he often said he thought Fortune would beat the devil.
Her power is shown in the moving of her solicitors to think, instantly after they have made their cast, that the reverse of it was what they intended.