Women think chastity is a virtue primarily insisted upon and enforced by men.  They mistake.  ’T is a virtue primarily insisted upon and enforced by women:  For

When that divine, unique thing Love comes to a woman, if she be not chaste, it is she who deplores the fact.  The man may easily enough be deceived; her own heart a woman can never deceive.  Besides,

With what righteous indignation women themselves visit unchastity!

* * *

Between the sexes, resentment is the worst of defensive weapons:  in the hands of a man it is like a cow-hide shield opposed to Mauser bullets; in the hands of a woman, like a parasol on a cloudy day.  Since

Woman penetrates resentment by ridicule; man treats it with dull indifference.  And

A snub from a woman is never forgotten.  And for two reasons:  because

(a) The lord of creation hates to be floored by the jiu-jitsu of feminine raillery; and because

(b) The last thing a man expects from a “ministering angel” is mundane mockery.  Besides,

Deliberate derision murders, not only affection, but admiration.

* * *

A blush needs no apologies. (Why?  Because

Always a blush is spontaneous, uncontrollable; and

If there is any one thing a man likes to see, it is a spontaneous, an uncontrollable action in woman.)

When the man has declared himself hers and hers alone; has given proof of the truth of such declaration; has bound the woman to himself by terms dictated by herself then, but not till then, the woman acts spontaneously and without control; then she blushes.  But

Seek not, impulsive masculine lover, to explore too many of the mysteries of this thy feminine helpmeet.  Perchance she feels herself so much above thee that she blushes to give the herself.  Perchance she regards thee so much a symbol of the god-like, that she blushes for because she is not more worthy.  But far more probably she blushes for because she betrays to thee a mortal, a divine and cosmic secret.  For

There is a divine and cosmic secret hidden beneath every blush.

* * *

Ah! man, man, peccant, impulsive, passionate man, little knowest thou of the divine and cosmic secret that underlies Love.

To thee, O man, it may be, ’t is a momentary flash that irradiates the world, and reveals for a moment a sky above that world;

To thee, O woman, ’t is the reverberating thunder that, echoing, rolls for ever after unceasing in thy ears.  Is this why,

Between a man and a woman, a single look will sometimes change the complexion of an intimacy of a life-time?  And

Not until that look comes—­not until eyes look into eyes with a penetration supernatural—­is acquaintanceship metamorphosed into love.

* * *

It is a favorite fiction amongst women that a rejected suitor either will not marry or marries the first girl he meets.  Because,