_Intercourse with (1) The Home Girl; (2) The Bachelor Girl; (3) The
Business Girl; (4) The Student or Professional Girl--Friends who
become Lovers._
The Home Girl.
As has already been said, the would-be lover will do well to study the
workings of his lady's home. If she has many domestic duties to
perform he will arrange his spare time to fit in with hers. He will
not call at such times as would be inconvenient and run the risk of
ructions, simply because he knows _she_ will be glad to see him. He
will not look aggrieved if she refuses to go out cycling with him
because she has promised to take the little ones out blackberrying. He
will seize a golden chance and go with them. When he is at her home,
he will not act as if the whole place belonged to him, and he will be
careful not to become a bore.
Men of leisure, and men whose professions place them on confidential
terms, such as doctors and clergymen, have the greatest opportunities
of knowing the Home Girl at her best, and at her worst. The last two
see her under conditions that show what she is really made of, and not
merely what she appears in society, for they have access to the house
in times of trouble when outsiders are excluded.
The Bachelor Girl
is pretty sure to be out of her teens, but not necessarily in the
thirties. She will probably have girl chums who, like herself, are
living in a more or less independent fashion. She sometimes indulges
in anti-matrimonial theories, and it may prove most interesting to
convert her from the error of her ways. A man has such beautifully
sure ground under his feet when she has given him plainly to
understand that she prefers {31} friendship to love. A would-be suitor
will find his opportunities of intercourse regulated by her standard
of conventionality. She is free to make her own life, with her own
code of conduct, her own ideas of responsibility.
She meets him frankly on what she deems common ground; but he sees the
other side of things, for men and women never can and never will look
at life from the same point of view. His knowledge should make him all
the more jealous of her fair fame, but he must walk warily lest he
wound her womanly dignity. She will do nothing wrong, her heart is too
pure for that, but he must not let her do what may even appear to be
wrong. At first she will be a little intoxicated with the sense of her
own freedom. He must never take advantage of that, for he knows that
the woman always pays.
They will probably include one of her chums in their cosy tea-parties
at her rooms, and there will be no secret of his coming and going. He
will see her home from the theatre, concert, or lecture, but he will
not go and smoke in her flat till the small hours. He will
discriminate as to the restaurant where they have lunch together, and
he will not invite her to a _tete-a-tete_ supper after the play. She
will entertain him at her club, and he will guard against the
assumption of rights that are not his.
The Business Girl.
The daily life of the Business Girl is of necessity a regular one, and
the man who wants to know more of her knows where to find her. If by
chance he is employed in the same firm, he has daily chances of making
headway with her. He can often render her little services, help her
over rough places, and make life as pleasant again for her. All this
can be so managed that no one, save perhaps a lynx-eyed rival, will
know anything about it. He will certainly not make her the talk of the
office by bragging of his conquest, and laying wagers as to his chance
of success, or get her into hot water by hindering her at her work.
She will keep her own counsel, and not giggle with other girls when he
comes along. Of course she will tell her special friend all about it,
for what is the good of a love-affair if you cannot talk to some one
on the all-engrossing subject?
{32} She will not display the buttonhole he bought her on the way from
the train to all the other girls as his gift, nor will she be foolish
and give herself away by hanging about his room door in the hopes of
seeing him. She will always find time for a word or a bright glance
when they do meet, by accident of course.
He will not make her conspicuous by always travelling home with her,
but he will be at hand to pilot her through a fog, to help her out of
a crowd, or to get her a place when there is anything to be seen. He
will make it plain that he thinks of her, and is ever on the alert to
play the part of her cavalier.
She is practical and self-reliant, as a rule, but she does not object
to be courted. When they plan a Saturday outing she will not propose
what she knows to be beyond his means, but she will pardon him for a
little extravagance in her honour.
Social Inequality.
When a man in a superior position begins paying attentions to a girl
filling a subordinate post, he will probably expose her to the
jealousy, and possible malice, of her fellows; but this will depend
greatly upon the girl herself. In this case the suitor must steer
clear of anything like patronage. If she is worthy of his notice she
is worthy of his respect and consideration. He will be careful not to
take her to any place of amusement where she would feel out of her
element, or run the risk of being snubbed by any of his own rich
friends. The son of a wealthy merchant would not give as much pleasure
to a girl earning thirty shillings in his father's office if he took
her to supper at the Carlton, as if he selected some less magnificent
restaurant. She would feel more at home on the river, or at Earl's
Court, than on the lawn at Hurlingham. He would show her that his
pleasure was to be with her, and he would wait till he could call her
his wife before introducing her to a new world.
The Student or Professional Girl.
There is a little country called Bohemia, whose laws rule the kingdom
of Art, and whose government seems a trifle erratic to those who live
outside the charmed circle. Students of {33} music, painting,
sculpture, and the drama have a code of Etiquette that may be called
adaptable; but it does not follow that because a man is an artist he
must therefore be deficient in courtesy to women; nor is it yet
inevitable that when a girl develops a talent for drawing she should
violate all the proprieties.
Falling in love with music-masters is a very old story, but it is not
quite a thing of the past. A man has no right to work on the emotions
of his pupil merely for his own amusement or to gratify his vanity. He
may find that it infuses more soul into her music, but she is a woman
as well as an artist. Where both have the artistic temperament highly
developed, it is playing with fire indeed.
_The Dramatic Student_ is thrown into very mixed society. She is left
with a great deal of spare time on her hands when merely
understudying, or out of an engagement. She is forced to keep late
hours, and may be exposed to many unpleasant experiences. I know of
one man who was so distressed at the girl of his heart having to cross
London by the last 'bus every night that he changed his quarters and
took rooms as near to where she was living as he could, in order to be
able to see her home without making the fact unduly conspicuous.
This was a delicate act of courtesy, and I am glad to say that they
are now happily married.
_The Medical Student and Hospital Nurse_ are generally women with a
special turn of mind, and in the former case the work of training is
so absorbing that it can hardly be run concurrently with the delights
of courtship. The nurse soon learns to take care of herself, and has
many special opportunities of studying the lords of creation. She sees
some of the noblest and most gifted of them at their work, the wildest
of them at play, and all and sundry in their hour of weakness; and
this experience should be borne in mind by the man who seeks to win
her. She will not regard him as a demi-god, nor as a hero of romance.
She will not appeal to the man who wants a mere plaything in his wife.
She will have far higher gifts than the society doll, but she will be
a woman to be wooed, and worth the winning.
{34}
Friends who become Lovers.
There are those who say that friendship excludes love, and there is a
kind of friendship which can only exist where love is impossible and
undesired. On the other hand we know that sometimes the boy and girl
who have grown up side by side, who have shared each other's pranks and
penalties, do wake up one day to find a new element asserting itself
in their intercourse. A certain shyness springs up between them only
to be dispelled by fuller, sweeter comradeship. This development
sometimes takes place during a period of separation, or when a
possible rival appears on the scene. It usually assumes concrete form
in the man's mind first. He may hide his love under the guise of
friendship till he feels he has a right to make it known. It may be
that he has to go abroad to seek the wherewithal to start a home, and
when he has succeeded he will write some such letter as this:--
"My Dear Clari,--When I threw up my berth at home you wondered why I
was in such a hurry to leave the old country, and home, and you, and
it was very hard not to tell you the real reason. I came out here to
make enough money to set up housekeeping, and, dear, I want you to
come and help me, now I have succeeded so far. I know it is a
tremendous thing to ask, and that I am entirely unworthy of the
sacrifice you would be making; but, dear, we know each other pretty
well by this, and I hope you can trust yourself to me. If you only
knew how I have longed to tell you this through the last two years of
our sweet, but to me unsatisfying, friendship you would not keep me in
suspense any longer than you can help. You have been the one thought
and object of my life ever since I came out, and I have lived in fear
of some other fellow getting in before me.
I think I must always have loved you, it seems a part of myself, but
it was your first ball that woke me up.
Let me know soon, dear.--Ever and always your devoted
"GORDON."
However the change from friendship to love comes about, the man must be
just as courteous as if she had only crossed {35} his path in the
fulness of her young womanhood. He must not take her for granted because
he knew her in pinafores, nor slight her sensibilities because he taught
her to climb trees. If he is negligent other men will supply his
deficiencies. As a lover he is bound to appear in a new light, and he
must look to it that he does not suffer by the change. The friend
ought to make the best lover, for he knows the tastes and weaknesses,
the temperament and surroundings of the woman he has chosen. They will
be bound by countless old associations, but this very familiarity may
breed, not contempt, but a matter-of-fact mental attitude that will
rob courtship of more than half its charm.
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