gic. She knows that
the adornment of her body is all that she has to match the other woman
and outdo her, and to attract the male, and nothing that you can say
will influence her a particle. I know this all seems incomprehensible to
you as a man, but that is the feminine nature. You are trying to fight
something that is unfightable."

"Has the American woman no instinct of patriotism, then?" asked Bok.

"Not the least," was the answer, "when it comes to her adornment. What
Paris says, she will do, blindly and unintelligently if you will, but
she will do it. She will sacrifice her patriotism; she will even justify
a possible disregard of the decencies. Look at the present Parisian
styles. They are absolutely indecent. Women know it, but they follow
them just the same, and they will. It is all very unpleasant to say
this, but it is the truth and you will find it out. Your effort, fine as
it is, will bear no fruit."

Wherever Bok went, women upon whose judgment he felt he could rely, told
him, in effect, the same thing. They were all regretful, in some cases
ashamed of their sex, universally apologetic; but one and all declared
that such is "the feminine nature," and Bok would only have his trouble
for nothing.

And so it proved. For a period, the retail shops were more careful in
the number of genuine French models of gowns and hats which they
exhibited, and the label firm confessed that its trade had fallen off.
But this was only temporary. Within a year after The Journal stopped the
campaign, baffled and beaten, the trade in French labels was greater
than ever, hundreds of French models were sold that had never crossed
the ocean, the American woman was being hoodwinked on every hand, and
the reign of the French couturier was once more supreme.

There was no disguising the fact that the case was hopeless, and Bok
recognized and accepted the inevitable. He had, at least, the
satisfaction of having made an intelligent effort to awaken the American
woman to her unintelligent submission. But she refused to be awakened.
She preferred to be a tool: to be made a fool of.

Bok's probe into the feminine nature had been keenly disappointing. He
had earnestly tried to serve the American woman, and he had failed. But
he was destined to receive a still greater and deeper disappointment on
his next excursion into the feminine nature, although, this time, he was
to win.

During his investigations into women's fashions, he had u