Part 7 (1/2)

[Sidenote: His Short Suit]

GIRL. (_Leading his short suit._) ”You could have waited on your front steps till the garbage man took you away, and I wouldn't have written you any note.”

MAN. (_With evident sincerity._) ”That's no dream! I could do just that!” (_Proposal follows in due course, MAN making full and complete confession._)

If he is foolish enough to complicate his game with another girl, he loses much more than he gains, for he lowers the whole affair to the level of a flirtation, and destroys any belief the girl may have had in him. He also forces her to do the same thing, in self-defence.

Flirtation is the only game in which it is advisable and popular to trump one's partner's ace.

He who would win a woman must challenge her admiration, prove himself worthy of her regard, appeal to her sympathy--and then wound her. She is never wholly his until she realises that he has the power to make her miserable as well as to make her happy, and that love is an infinite capacity for suffering.

A man who does it consciously is apt to overdo it, out of sheer enthusiasm, and if a girl suspects that it is done intentionally, the hurt loses its sting and changes her love to bitterness. A succession of attempts is also useless, for a man never hurts a woman twice in exactly the same way. When he has run the range of possible stabs, she is out of his reach--unless she is his wife.

[Sidenote: A State Secret]

The intentional absence scheme is too transparent to succeed, and temporary devotion to another girl is definite damage to his cause, for it indicates fickleness and instability. There is only one way by which a man may discover his true position without asking any questions, and that is--a state secret. Now and then a man strikes it by accident, but n.o.body ever tells--even brothers or platonic friends.

Some men select a wife as they would a horse, paying due attention to appearance, gait, disposition, age, teeth, and grooming. High spirits and a little wildness are rather desirable than otherwise, if both are young. Men who have had many horses or many wives and have grown old with both, have a slight inclination toward sedate ways and domestic traits.

[Sidenote: The ”Woman's Column”]

Modern society makes it fully as easy to choose the one as the other. In communities where the chaperone idea is at its prosperous zenith, a man may see a girl under nearly all circ.u.mstances. The men who conduct the ”Woman's Column” in many pleasing journals are still writing of the effect it has on a man to catch a girl in curl papers of a morning, though curl papers have been obsolete for many and many a moon.

Cycling, golf, and kindred out-door amus.e.m.e.nts have been the death of careless morning attire. Uncorseted woman is unhappy woman, and the girl of whom the versatile journalist writes died long ago. Perhaps it is because a newspaper man can write anything at four minutes' notice and do it well, that the press fairly reeks with ”advice to women.”

The question, propounded in a newspaper column, ”What Kind of a Girl Does a Man Like Best,” will bring out a voluminous symposium which adds materially to the gaiety of the nation. It would be only fair to have this sort of thing temporarily reversed--to tell men how to make home happy for their wives and how to keep a woman's love, after it has once been given.

Some clever newspaper woman might win everlasting laurels for herself if she would contribute to this much neglected branch of human knowledge.

How is a man to know that a s.h.i.+rt-front which looks like a railroad map diverts one's mind from his instructive remarks? How is he to know that a cane is a nuisance when he fares forth with a girl? It is true that sisters might possibly attempt this, but the modern sister is heavily overworked at present and it is not kind to suggest an addition to her cares.

[Sidenote: Neglected By His Kind]

There is no advice of any sort given to men except on the single subject of choosing a wife. This is to be found only in the books in the Sabbath-School library, or in occasional columns of the limited number of saffron dailies which illuminate the age. Surely, man has been neglected by his kind!

[Sidenote: Indecision]

The general masculine att.i.tude indicates widespread belief in the promise, ”Ask, and ye shall receive.” A man will tell his best friend that he doesn't know whether to marry a certain girl. If she hears of his indecision there is trouble ahead, if he finally decides in the affirmative, and it is quite possible that he may not marry her.

After the door of a woman's heart has once swung on its silent hinges, a man thinks he can prop it open with a brick and go away and leave it. A storm is apt to displace the brick, however--and there is a heavy spring on the door. Woe to the masculine finger that is in the way!

A man often hesitates between two young women and asks his friends which he shall marry. Custom has permitted the courts.h.i.+p of both and neither has the right to feel aggrieved, because it is exceedingly bad form for a girl to love a man before he has asked her to.

Now and then a third girl is a man's confidante at this trying period.

Nothing so bores a person as to be a man's ”guide, philosopher and friend” in his perplexities with other girls. To one distinct cla.s.s of women men tell their troubles and the other cla.s.s sees that they have plenty to tell. It is better to be in the second category than in the first.

Sooner or later, the confidante explains the whole affair to the subjects of the confidence and strange, new kinds of trouble immediately come to the rash man. It is a common failing to expect another person to keep a secret which we have just proved is beyond our own capability.

[Sidenote: The Adamantine Fortress]