usy, too." (_Voluminous detail of her affairs
follows, entirely pleasant in character._)

MAN. (_Tenderly._) "Were you so busy you didn't miss me?"

GIRL. "Why, I can't say I missed you, exactly, but I always thought of
you pleasantly."

MAN. "Did you think of me often?"

GIRL. (_Laughing._) "I didn't keep any record of it. Do you want me to
cut a notch in the handle of my parasol every time I think of you? If
all my friends were so exacting, I'd have time for nothing else. I'd
need a new one every week and the house would be full of shavings. All
my fingers would be cut, too."

MAN. (_Unconsciously showing his hand._) "I thought you'd write me a
note."

[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