illing. Doubtless their feminine influence has circumvented
nature to such an extent that no one would suspect that their men were
under thirty-five. I only beg of them to remember that I am not
discussing girl-trained men or widowers. Both of these types are as
near perfection as a man can become.

A man whom girls have trained is really modest. Even at twenty he does
not think that he knows it all. He is willing to admit that his father
and mother have brains, and that thirty years' experience entitles
them to a hearing. He also is willing to give the girls a show, to
humor them, to find them interesting as studies, but never to claim to
understand them. In short, he has many of the charming qualities of
the man over thirty-five and the widower. That is the man who is
girl-trained. But Heaven help the man who is girl-spoiled.

Far be it from me to say that the untrained man under thirty-five, at
his worst, is of no use in this world. He is excellent for a two-step.
I have used a number of them very successfully in this way. But I know
the awful thought has already pierced some people's brains--what if
the man under thirty-five does not dance?

Sometimes an untrained man under thirty-five will actually have the
audacity to say to me that he takes small pleasure in society because
the girls he meets are so silly, and he must use small-talk in order
to meet them on their own ground. I am aghast at his temerity, as he,
too, will be when he has heard our side of the subject. We girls never
have allowed ourselves the luxury of vindicating ourselves, or
refuting this charge. It is the clever girl who suffers most of
all--not the brilliant, meteoric girl--but just the ordinarily clever
girl, as other girls know her. It is this sort of a girl who drags
upon my sympathies, because she occupies an anomalous position.

Being a real woman, she likes to be liked. She wishes to please men.
We all do. But what kind of men are we to please? Untrained men under
thirty-five? Owing to the horrible prevalence of these men, some girls
become neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. They see their
silly, pink-cheeked sisters followed and admired. They know either how
shallow these girls are or how cleverly hypocritical. Clever girls are
also human. They love to go about and wear pretty clothes, and dance,
and be admired quite as much as anybody.

The result is that they adopt the only course left to them, and,
bringing themselves d