Tenderness is so delicate and deep-seated a feeling, that few care to attempt its simulation.

* * *

A woman who gives herself too freely is apt to regret the giving.  In time, too, she discovers that, as a matter of fact,

No woman can give her real self twice:  one or other gift will prove to be a loan. (And

It is always and only the first recipient that causes a woman’s heart to flutter, and often it flutters long.) 144

A second gift is generally a mortgage—­if it is not a sale.

A mortgage is difficult to bind.  For

There is a statute of limitations in love as there is in law.  Nor is the former to be set aside by bond.

That pair is in a parlous state when either party discovers that the title was not properly searched.  Since

Everybody expects a fee simple,—­though few deserve it, God wot!

* * *

Perhaps the most durable conquest is the incomplete one.  Which sounds illogical.  But it is well to remember that

Repletion seems to cause, in the man, temporary indifference; while

Repletion causes, in the woman, enduring content.  And in this we can detect a significant distinction between the sexes:  namely the fact that

A single goal satisfies most women;

No single goal ever yet satisfied the restless spirit of man.

* * *

What gives keenest joy is the evocation of latent passion.  For Each takes pleasure in believing that he or she alone can evoke this passion.  Accordingly,

The premature confession of passion, and the confession of premature passion, both rankle in the breast—­and, probably, in the breast of both penitent and confessor.

* * *

What intensity of feeling a woman can throw into the enunciation of a Christian name!  There is perhaps no better clue to possession that this.  For, probably,

Not until a man’s Christian mane is ecstatically uttered is a woman wholly his. * * *

Men and women content with the different weapons.  This is why Men are rarely intrepid in the presence of women; but women rarely stand in awe of men.—­Nothing differentiates the sexes more than this; but the psychological reason is difficult to discover.  Perhaps,

The making of love is a sort of duel, the conditions of which are that the man shall doff all his armor and the woman may don all hers.  Indeed,

The battle of love-making would be an unequal combat, even were both contestants fully panoplied; for,

A woman’s derision will pierce any mail.  In fact,

No armor is impervious to woman’s shafts—­be they those of laughter or be they those of love.  So

The veriest roue’ is vulnerable to the veriest maid.  But

For each man she meets, a woman carries in her quiver but one shaft.  If that misses its aim, she is powerless:  it is like a dart without a thong; when thrown, the man can close.  But