Chapter I: Female Wallflowers

Let us attend a dance together. Let us suppose you are a young lady and that I am your companion who has never taken you to a dance before. Let us also suppose that I am quite good looking and that you would like to make the best of all impressions upon me.

It may be that I have met you at a tea or at a dinner and know nothing whatsoever about you except that you are not ugly or, that is, not too ugly. You may have an uneven feature or two but that may only enhance your charm the more. Or it may be that you have come to visit a friend in a strange city and that I, as one of your friend’s unattached and obliging male acquaintances, have been asked to escort you to the dance. Or I may be a new fellow in town.

If we happen to be any or all of these combinations and all the proprieties have been followed, there is no reason why we should not proceed to the dance together.

YOUR DRESS

Before we go however, let us take a look into your wardrobe. More particularly let us come to some sort of understanding about what can and what cannot be worn.

If it is a formal dance, which fact you should have ascertained before you started to dress, you would of course wear an evening gown. As to the particular type of evening gown let us go more into detail.

But why start there? There is no reason on earth why we should not digress as far back as the bath.

But a bath, you say, is not always possible. To which I reply, a cleansing of some sort is always possible, weather and taste permitting.

Very well, to the bath then.

Let it be a hot bath or shower followed by a cold dash and that followed by a brisk rub-down. After the rub-down it isn’t at all a bad idea to use a toilet water, not too penetrating in odor, over the entire body. If you use toilet water of a particular scent be sure to dust the entire body with a powder of the same scent. Whether the toilet water is used or not, be sure to dust the body with the powder. Care should be taken not to leave it in great, obvious dabs on the back of the neck or between the shoulders.

Another good practice after a bath is to stand before a mirror and give yourself a good once-over. This is not impossible anywhere, which is to say that if the mirror is small you can stand a little distance from it and get a very nice view of the ensemble. “Distance,” as they say, “lends enchantment.”

Now for the lingerie. A young lady whom I know, recently showed me a very beautiful outfit. It is a three piece combination: a tight fitting brassiere; tailored trunks very similar to those worn by trackmen and runners. Both of these were of satin. And over all is a georgette slip. The latter may be dispensed with, according to the weather and temperament of the wearer.

If you feel that an elastic girdle of some sort is absolutely necessary, wear it, but be very careful that there are no rolls of flesh protruding from its confines. If that, too, is impossible, let it protrude where your various partners could not possibly notice it.

And now for the makeup. I was informed, only recently, by a young lady whose appearance I was particularly admiring that she had on a very light stage makeup. That is what I would advise. The base of this particular makeup was wheatcroft which can be tinted to any color or complexion desired. It is a vegetable compound and is quite good for the skin. If you are disfigured by an excessive growth of hair on the arms you will find wheatcroft quite desirable. The only trouble with it is that it smells like a horse’s breath after he has eaten wheat. On top of the wheatcroft, use whatever you like in good taste. Remember, however, that your makeup must be just a little stronger for a dance than for the street. Wheatcroft does not run.

Having done everything else, turn your attention now to that very necessary detail, your perfume.

There are perfumes and perfumes. Some of them for one purpose and some for another. Your job should have been from the age of fifteen to familiarize yourself with the particular properties of each scent that met your pretty nose. You should know by this time that perfumes were first designed to take the place of baths. You should also know that the present use of perfume is for quite another purpose which I cannot go into here.

Let me add that your perfume affects a young man quite decidedly whether he knows he’s being affected or not. A friend of mine tells me that there are perfumes that can and do accomplish anything.

_Choose your perfume carefully and you have won half the battle._

So far I have given details of the toilet which would apply to any dance. The dress and the coif, of course, must vary.

DRESS FOR FORMAL DANCE

The evening dress should be chosen with the greatest care. In most cases it must be chosen with the view of lasting at least one season and possibly two. It is understood, to be sure, that I am talking with a young person of limited means. As I said, the evening dress should be chosen with the utmost care. Your community, of course, and the attitudes of your immediate contemporaries will gauge the cut of the gown.

I should, if I were asked about my own taste, suggest a dress with a very tight basque and a circular skirt. But that is all a matter of your own taste. If you are just a little plump, a straight line dress, depending from the shoulders and without sign of belt or division would be very good. If you are quite plump I should suggest a course in dynamic symmetry from some good commercial art school. My own knowledge of the principles of that particular phase of the arts is not authentic.

But the most important feature of the whole dress is its color. I have it from one of the most popular girls I have ever known that the color of a dress does more to make a girl sought after than anything else about her. Incidentally this same girl forgets that there is such a thing as a darkened room. I must say for the young lady’s theory that she has enjoyed an uninterrupted vogue at dances for the last seven years.

The color then should be carefully chosen. It should be some hue which while it attracts attention, should, at the same time, be eminently suited to your complexion. Blondes with olive skins can wear any color they may choose, and still look quite smart. Redheads with pale, clear complexions are equally fortunate except that they should avoid certain shades of brown and gray.

A brunette is most striking in a very warm color, something say in crimson or one of the warmer blues; blues, that is to say, which verge on purple. White on a brunette becomes striking. In the same manner, blue near a freckled face becomes conspicuous, or rather the freckles do.

Your coiffeur should not concern you if your hair is bobbed. You should be sure to keep it clean and if you feel that the young man’s nose may get among it in the course of the evening, put a subtle perfume there to meet it halfway, as it were. Long hair produces still other problems. You should know by this time that straggling wisps of hair are quite unsightly and dress your hair accordingly.

OFF IN A GALE OF LAUGHTER

You are now ready for the dance. I have come to the house where you are staying or to your domicile and am now in the parlor talking to your hostess or your mother. You have been called. Don’t wait too long to come down. Nothing is more distressing to a young man than to have to wait.

When you came into the room I should, of course, rise and watch you exclusively and appreciatively. Your own activities on this occasion should be actuated by your temperament. Your physical appearance should determine whether you approach with dignity or with coquettish abandon. In either case I should, and probably will, be appreciative if you do it nicely.

Things to say on such occasions are quite easy and should be natural. Enter the room with some cheery greeting which will at once establish a glowy feeling in the young man. Above all else, warn your mother or aunt or cousin not to take on the obvious appearance of a match-maker. Make her understand that, so far as you know, I think nothing whatever of you and that I am, after all, only a friend, and a very casual one at that. Also warn her not to relate anecdotes of your childhood. Make it plain that most normal young men despise little girls and would prefer not to hear about them however clever they may have seemed to their various relations at that age.

You have, I repeat, entered the drawing room of your present abode. You have greeted me with an outstretched hand and appreciative smile. You are subtly complimenting my neat appearance. Let me give you a secret. Young men of whatever age are as vain of their appearance as peacocks. They love to be thought handsome or well dressed and intelligent. A well chosen phrase about their taste in clothing will do more to make them appreciate your beauty than anything else on earth. That is, most young men. Others practice a studied indifference to their personal appearance, going to no end of trouble to ruin the press in a pair of trousers in order to seem slightly disheveled.

The latter type likes to be thought quite brilliant. He may recite poetry to you. He, of all types, is most dangerous because, while he seems attentive, you get the feeling eventually that he is a hair-brained idealist and needs a mother and when that occurs to you—well—. Be cautious about poets and indifferent young men. They can make you excessively happy for a short time but more often they make a perfect hash of life.

The meticulous dressers come of two types. One is the gay type, the trifler, the drug store cowboy, etc., _ad infinitum_. The other type is the Babbitt-like youth who is interested principally in girls and work. He makes the most satisfactory husband. He will never let you go unfed or unclothed and your life will be even, often dull and sometimes maddening, but your vegetable happiness should be complete if you don’t let yourself believe everything you hear and read about the fine average American.

Probably I have digressed too far. Back again to us. We have greeted each other and after a little small talk, gotten our wraps against going to the dance. Your mother or aunt or cousin or friend has told us goodby but she has not, as is often thought proper, trusted you to my gentlemanly care.

It depends on several things whether I have come for you in a taxi. All that will be taken up when we speak about the young man wallflower. Needless to say there are certain young men of very good families who have a perfect penchant for doing the incorrect thing on all occasions.

If I have an automobile everything is different. Let us say I have a nice coupe of a popular make, not too showy but still quite nice.

We descend the steps from your house, you hanging to my right biceps, seeming, so I think, to be quietly admiring the feel of so strong an arm. That gets over big. Don’t let the young man think you consider him a hairy ape; just let him understand that you feel protected but at the same time give him the assurance that you know all about taking care of yourself. Be to the best of your ability and particularly your ingenuity, a woman. Let me tell you before I go farther that any woman can get herself a man or a husband but that is not what she should strive for. What she really wants is admirers.

Will we never get to that dance? It seems not.

During the ride to the dance gauge your man. Find out what his thoughts and emotions (be careful with the latter) are, if any. You can tell in this way just what the evening is going to be.

If he is silent mostly and his sentences come in funny spurts and starts, he is probably bashful himself as we have assumed you are. If he starts talking at a great rate, mouthing good, sweet, moral sentiments at every breath and asking you if you attend B.Y.P.U. or Epworth League, he probably has a dirty mind and will very soon switch to the pornography in the Bible. That is a slur. Some talkative youths are quite bright and while they may be sophomoric in their mental attitudes, still they are most entertaining.

If he adopts the gay strain and quotes in reckless wise such things as _Yukon Jake_[*] or, say, the youthful salaciousnesses of Edna Millay before she grew to her full stature in such things as _The King’s Henchmen and Fear_. Let us suppose he quotes:

I burn my candle at both ends,
It will not last the night.
But O, my foes, and Ah, my friends,
It gives a lovely light.

rest assured that he is a complete “dud.” He is, in the beginning, a hedonist, a pseudo-intellectual with a dash of cynicism, just enough to make him say at frequent intervals, “This age is decadent, quite putrid.” Avoid him, beware! He will protest that he is an intellectual and he will say that he must laugh loud and long to keep from weeping so much. Beware! Beware! He is a goat in sheep’s clothing.

[Footnote *: _The Ballad of Yukon Jake_ in Little Blue Book No. 1025.]

I am one of these young men. Your problem between your house and the dance is to determine which one I am. I’ll give you a hint. I like the last one described. You are finding out what I want to talk about. You are establishing a personal relationship. You are, or should be, making me one of your admirers. Say that you have discovered in spite of my hint that I _am_ the last young man.

I have flatly denied being a cynic and then rather paradoxically gone on to prove to you that I am one. You should listen to me very attentively for a little and then quietly bomb my ship by saying,

What is the use of talking?
There is no end to talking.
There is no end of things in the heart.

I should understand by that that you have dealt me a very neat blow in the abdomen, that you are, therefore, my equal and that you see clear through me and out the other side. By that one statement you have made me ridiculous, yourself sage and us compatible.

If I am the first youth, who speaks as if he had an impediment in his throat or behind his tongue, the kindest thing that you could possibly do would be to talk a great deal yourself at first. Don’t sit silently by, waiting for me to start things. Like as not I never will and, while you may enjoy your own thoughts more, you will probably be surprised to discover that I am, behind all my bashfulness, quite a likable person. Of course I may be horribly repressed and self conscious but still for that very reason, I become intensely grateful to you if you try to make me understand that you don’t see it that way and that you think me the most charming young person of your acquaintance.

If I begin by deploring the activities of the younger generation and ask you if you really don’t think the world is coming to a pretty pass, the best thing for you to do is to remark that so far as you know it has always been at a pretty pass. Tell me before I have a chance to that you really think, as far as literature is concerned, that the Bible is just as naughty as anything that has been written in the last ten years. To get along with that sort of person you can talk about anything and get away with it just so long as it implies something quite risque and at the same time deplores it.

If I am just a talkative sophomore, let me talk on and be sure to laugh at the right places. Be careful to laugh with me and not at me, however.

If I am a well dressed Rotarian of good address, I think I said that this type make choice husbands, the best way to get me is by being about the worthiest business proposition in sight. Don’t think it will be necessary to love me. That isn’t what I want at all; I want somebody, who either by association or by some subtle means like social standing or membership in a good church, that is to say, a church where the richer people of the community go, will be of advantage to me financially. So if you are pretty and well dressed and ever so slightly intelligent you are just what I want. But if you talk to me about your ambitions along some line such as biology or law or medicine, you are out. Whatever your ambitions may be, your abilities for the type of man I have so suddenly become should be simply two: how to dress and how to cook. And there is that other one; how to flatter till it makes you laugh inside at man’s vanity.

The best thing to say to this type of man is something about the new receipt for something or other that you saw today. Or mention the fact to him that you made the dress you are wearing, whether you did or not. Most struggling young businessmen, if they are to be at all worth while, will spend money freely but they like to think that they are really being economical. Let him understand that you would be a very practical appliance to have around the house. Let him know, too, that you could and would make his home into a veritable paradise. In a word the best way to catch the most desirable husband is to make him think that you are working for his best interests at all times. Probably I have said too much about these boys, but remember, they are the ones who will have the prettiest cars and the best houses and the most _things_.

But on to the dance. Let us say that we have at last reached the scene of riotous mirth and glee whither we started several hours ago. You have discovered, much to your dismay, that I am not one but all of the young men combined and that at all times during the evening you will be forced to watch your step in order to keep me interested.

We have come to the palatial home of one of your wealthier friends, let us say, and we are let in by a footman either hired or not, that is none of our business even if we do choose to comment upon the fact, our wraps are taken from us and we look at each other again as if it were a treat long denied. At this very point you can tell what I think of you. If I look at you and smile and do not turn my head away but insist upon looking at you and listening to you if you are still talking and seem not a whit interested in whom else is there, you have me, I am yours. But if, on the other hand, I look at you shortly, smile with a far preoccupied smile and then turning seem to want to run away, you have lost the first half of the battle. Something is wrong. You have not followed the proper advice. You had best go back home and start over or else concentrate your technique on another man than me during the remainder of the evening.

Very well, you have pleased me then; I offer you my arm and wander into the ballroom with you. Your hostess and host, let us say, are waiting by the wide door into the salon to greet their guests, the most alluring music on earth is floating from the room. As we walk, the violin and piano weave a long bright cloak about us and when we stand to be greeted we seem to be quite happy to have come.

If I am unknown, be polite enough to introduce me to the hostess with some remark about me or my people. Always be careful to introduce me to the hostess first, never, under any circumstance, to the host. Something like this is in very good taste: “Madam Recamier, this is Horace Walpole van Stotenbottle, whose mother was a schoolmate of my Aunt Letitia Buhecker.” “How do you do,” says the hostess, “surely you aren’t the son of Nancy Walpole. I knew her well as a girl. Mr. van Stotenbottle, this is my husband.” And in my turn I say, “Delighted, I’m sure.” And Mr. Recamier grunts.

Another small detail. A young man who gets along well with older ladies is a pretty safe bet any way you take him. No, I take that back. I should have qualified it by saying, a young man who gets along with happy old ladies, elderly women who have been happily married, is a pretty safe bet.

Let us say there is a waltz in progress. A waltz of all musical compositions is one of the best testers extant for the dancing ability of a young man. If he can’t do a simple old-fashioned waltz there is very little else he can hope to do. A girl’s part in dancing, that is, with a good dancer, is comparatively easy. She must, to be sure, be rhythmical and able to move lightly but definitely to the least nuance of her partner. Fortunately she does not have to lead and if she learns to depend on the man and does not feel that she could make a better job of it herself and try to do so she should get along without any trouble. If, however, she has danced much with women and led them she is liable to do a little independent foot work of her own, much to the dismay of her partner. Avoid dancing with women, as the leader. Of course, follow them if you like, but never lead.

We waltz away. Halfway down the floor I am tagged by some person of your acquaintance to whom you may or may not introduce me. Either is quite proper. Usually a wise hostess has invited several young men, known as stags, who have not brought young ladies along. The young man who has just tagged me is one of these and has a wide acquaintance among the girls present. In that case, introduce me, and while you are dancing with him ask him to help me fill up my card, which, if not done by you or the hostess in case I am a stranger, will be done at some convenient time later in the evening. Usually the first two or three dances are free dances designed to allow time for the guests to arrive and to become accustomed to the crowd and the orchestra.

Suppose we enter the room at the end of the third dance and that the music stops soon after I have been tagged, and that the time has come for the young males to bicker and battle over their programs. Let us say that you have brought the young man back to me and that he has asked me for the second and fifth dances. He has done his polite bit and it is time for you to spy a girl friend across the hall to whom you just must say hello. You depart, and your friend guides me to other youths who, because of you or because of me or because of your friend, are willing to fill up the rest of my program which ordinarily contains about ten dances.

After this comes the grand march, led by the host and hostess or their debutante daughter and her boy friend. When this is over the first dance begins, which, of course, we have together. Let us say that the first dance is not a tag dance and that we will be forced, whether we like it or not, to dance together for ten minutes. Your technique during this time should do much for both of us. Let us hope that we are both passable dancers and that that is not bothering us too greatly. Very well, the thing for you to do now is to listen to me attentively if I am saying anything but if I am not don’t take on a bored expression and seem to be suffering under some violent inquisitory priest or other. That kills my chances with the other girls. They think when they see you that I am a perfect washout. Nor let yourself seem too hilarious.

Let us suppose for the sake of decency that you are one of the most popular girls there and that you and I are able to discuss the various wallflowers with sympathy and no little humor.

Our hostess not being as acute socially as I had formerly supposed has invited several more young ladies than young gentlemen. Let us say that these extra maidens are five of the most carefully picked wallflowers in the world.

1. THE OVERDRESSED WALLFLOWER

If you have paid strict attention to what has gone before you will not come under this heading or, to be sure, under any other heading I may choose to name.

There on the sidelines is a gauche maiden whom we shall call Miss Sunflower. She is the second cousin of Madam Recamier, our Hostess. How she got here is problematic. Whether she is from the country or not I cannot say definitely. Probably so, because country girls not being faced with as keen competition as city girls are not as careful as they might be. But their state is usually only temporary. They feel their way slowly at first and then one fine day when they have observed their fill, blossom out into most amazing creatures, clever, vivacious and often very beautiful.

At the present time, however, we are assuming that Miss Sunflower is just in that seedling stage when one is not sure whether she will grow into a gigantic brownfaced flower, a sweet pea or an ordinary castor bean. Her face still retains that muddy look of one who has spent a lifetime without the proper skin treatment. That very tan which she has acquired may prove her fortune later but to date she has not utilized it properly.

And to make matters worse, she has daubed her face with a perfectly white powder over which, not under, which is the proper method, she has put a magenta shade of rouge. And there is that little ring around her neck which looks like dirt but which is really only a little tanned line.

And the dress! What an interesting specimen. It is one the style of which was in vogue no less than ten years ago. Not satisfied with the simple base on which the dress was constructed, and which could have been made quite passable, she has be-frilled and be-flowered and be-ruffled it almost out of recognition. She has heard somewhere that ostentation is the secret of social success.

When she speaks we are quite amazed to discover that she has a very mellow voice with an undertone of warm richness to it. She probably developed her vocal cords by hog calling or some such bucolic endeavor. We find too that she is droll and that she knows animals quite well. That will eventually be called the secret of her success; the fact that she knows animals and can talk about them intelligently not to say humorously. Nor is it at all odd that knowing animals she should be entirely ignorant of men.

Now the best way for Miss Sunflower to commercialize her abilities, put them on the market and make them eminently salable, would be to begin on her dress and her skin. The skin as it is is very nice and she should not attempt to bleach it. The thing to do would be to even it up a little about the neck, cleanse it with some good cream, use only a little rouge on her cheeks and lots of lipstick and then a brunette powder on top.

Her dress, as I said, had a very simple base, in this case a tight basque and a very long full skirt, the whole in salmon pink taffeta. Now that as a base isn’t so bad, but our little friend has chosen to run quite wild. She has ruffled it around the lower hem with pink tulle and around the neck she has a perfect mountain mist of the same material. About the waist she has put a series of rather large bouquets.

In the first place she should not wear too much frilly-frally; hers should be a severe exterior. We should not concern ourselves with her for very long, however, as she is only a rather vital maiden in transit and is at the moment among the wallflowers.

2. THE QUESTIONING WALLFLOWER

“But why,” you ask rather impishly, “is that clever looking little creature over there sitting against the wall? She seems to have everything you have suggested is desirable in girls.”

I look and discover the garish Zinnia. I was fooled by that exterior earlier in the evening as were several other expectant males.

I had tagged her expecting the usual small talk, but not exactly what I got.

I began as I usually begin with: “Howdy, nice dance, what?”

And then: “O, Mr. van Stotenbottle, I have been wondering why you didn’t dance with me. I’ve been simply in a nervous jerk to ask you all about yourself.”

“Shoot! What do you want to know?” This would be interesting at least. I actually thought that it would.

“I just wanted to ask if you are married and if your wife is happy with you. I hardly see how she could be with such a handsome man as you are. Don’t you think it is a shame how these flapper wives treat their husbands? I think they are positively disgraceful. Are you going to be here in the city long? If you are I want to see a great deal of you because you look as if you are positively unconsolable. I really mean you do. I think it is a terrible sin too. Poor man! What does she do to you? Run about with other men? Or maybe you have one of those companionate marriages. What do you think of them anyway? I think there is a lot to it and yet I can’t say that I think it is strictly moral. What do you think? How much did you pay for that suit? I am always interested in those things. I may have to support a husband of my own some day, you know.” Then she actually paused.

“I am not married, young lady.” I said that at the top of my voice and right into her ear. “And furthermore,” I added from sheer anger, “you will never be.”

Now I ask you, my dear, can you say in all fairness that such as she should be allowed more than three feet from the wall? And I know of nothing that will stop her unless she finds some fatuous old fool who loves bright flowers and who can’t talk very well or very long himself and who thinks that he must be pampered to be loved. That is the only thing that would save her from being a wallflower and that only temporarily, for it would not be long before she found herself growing against another wall. But that is her problem not ours.

3. THE SUPPRESSED AND APOLOGETIC WALLFLOWER

This poor little girl should elicit more of our sympathy than of our contempt. She is the sad little victim of over-indulgent parents. She doesn’t quite understand what it is all about nor can she understand just exactly what it is that keeps her against the wall and those others, some of them not half so pretty as she, dancing all the time. Nor can she understand why she of all people has to suffer this way. Poor little kid! So very sensitive is she that she notices everything that is liable to hurt her. She hears, when she shouldn’t, things that make her hurt the worse.

She notices when her hostess, in a fit of compassion for her, tries to guide one of the young men in her direction, and she notices, too, that the young man makes a wry face and she imagines she hears him say that he is so sorry but he is all full and can’t possibly do a thing for her.

After not a few attempts this very evening, our hostess got me to dance with her. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that she was a very good dancer and withal quite a nice little girl who seemed to be quite young. I discovered, when I asked her, that she had attended a convent school in New Orleans.

The fact that she had gone to such a school would explain her general fear of men and possibly her intense dislike for them in some cases. She had allowed herself to be influenced too greatly by the teachings of the sisters and from their precept she had seen that a life of chastity was the only life for bringing perfect happiness.

That was my first diagnosis. Later I discovered that she had long since seen the error of that and in trying to remedy it herself had become excessively self-conscious.

I found her to be quite apologetic about every little thing. Due to her sudden attempt at change she had become body-conscious. If she touched me ever so slightly in a way that seemed to her mind improper she would be very careful to call my attention to it by saying: “O, I beg your pardon.” She did not know that the greater number of her supposed gaucheries or unintended intimacies would have gone unnoticed if she had not been so very careful about my noticing them. And it is not because I am unusually opaque that I do not notice such things either. I’m just not conscious of other bodies any more.

And besides she would not say the word “pardon” in that connection; she should use the better and certainly less emphatic word “excuse.”

I can think of nothing which will cure this type of wallflower. The only thing to do, so far as I know, is to let the poor child grow up and grow out of it the best way she can. All she needs is experience and age.

4. THE ELDERLY INGENUE

That lady over there, my sweet, is of a type that somehow never misses a dance. She is the elderly ingenue. From this distance one would judge her to be a very nice young lady but when you get closer you find that she is not at all what you expected her to be. She is a perennial. Let us call her Miss Phlox. One can but admire her ability to last and to appear at the first of every season remodeled and refurbished.

Her dress is in exceptionally good taste and her makeup is quite perfect but she has that something which makes all the men avoid her. She has chosen, for some reason, to adopt with a peculiar translation all the little tricks she has seen practiced by the more popular girls of the younger set.

She cannot be cured. Let her have her fling. But let’s just ask her why she wants to have fifteen flings.

5. THE COLD WALLFLOWER

I shall call her Miss Eidelweis because she is so cold, so beautiful and so hard to get.

Miss Eidelweis is one of your real aristocrats. The blood in her veins is steely blue. The antiquity of her name is only antedated by Lilith and you know, my dear, Lilith was not what one would call a nice young lady.

There is really so little to her personally that she has taken on a heavy hauteur which makes her only more beautiful but which denies absolutely that she is a maiden of any particular consequence. If she really knew the whole truth about her redoubtable family and if she knew just how adroit these etymologists can be, she would be desolated to discover that her family was quite as base as any other family and that what really makes an emperor of earth is very red blood and not blue blood at all.

Of course, she is dressed beautifully and her hair is coifed with amazing care and most becomingly. But there is something about her, something undefinable, you may say, which makes the men stay away. What is it? Their own vanity! To most men real vanity in a woman is quite unthinkable. Man’s vanity is the only thing that is allowable in this universe, according to man. Among the women she is quite popular because they know, they know.

“What do they know?” the imp within you asks.

They know men, old sox; they know their men and they also know that beauty and blood have nothing to do with the case whatsoever. They may help out but they are useless.

Women are quite wonderful, aren’t they? I could not possibly think of living in a world bereft of them.