When a man finds the way to a woman’s heart a boulevard, he has taken the wrong road.  When his path is easy and his burden light, it is time for him to doubt.  When his progress seems like making a new way to the Klondike, he needs only to keep his courage and go on.

For, after all, it is woman who decides.  A clever girl may usually marry any man she sees fit to honour with the responsibility of her bills.  The ardent lover counts for considerably less than he is wont to suppose.

[Sidenote:  The Only One They Know]

There is a good old scheme which the world of lovers has unanimously adopted, in order to find out where they stand.  It is so simple as to make one weep, but it is the only one they know.  This consists of an intentional absence, judiciously timed.

Suppose a man has been spending three or four evenings a week with the same girl, for a period of two or three months.  Flowers, books, and chocolates have occasionally appeared, as well as invitations to the theatre.  The man has been fed out of the chafing-dish, and also with accidental cake, for men are as fond of sugar as women, though they are ashamed to admit it.

Suddenly, without warning, the man misses an evening, then another, then another.  Two weeks go by, and still no man.  The neighbours and the family begin to ask questions of a personal nature.

It is at this stage that the immature and childish woman will write the man a note, expressing regret for his long absence, and trusting that nothing may interfere with their “pleasant friendship.”  Sometimes the note brings the man back immediately and sometimes it doesn’t.  He very seldom condescends to make an explanation.  If he does, it is merely a casual allusion to “business.”  This is the only excuse even a bright man can think of.

[Sidenote:  “Climbing a Tree”]

This act is technically known among girls as “climbing a tree.”  When a man does it, he wants a girl to bring a ladder and a lunch and plead with him to come down and be happy, but doing as he wishes is no way to attract a man up a tree.

Men are as impervious to tears and pleadings as a good mackintosh to mist, but at the touch of indifference, they melt like wax.  So when her quondam lover attempts metaphorical athletics, the wise girl smiles and withdraws into her shell.

She takes care that he shall not see her unless he comes to her.  She draws the shades the moment the lamps are lighted.  If he happens to pass the house in the evening, he may think she is out, or that she has company—­it is all the same to her.  She arranges various evenings with girl friends and gets books from the library.  This is known as “provisioning the citadel for a siege.”

[Sidenote:  Pride and Pride]

It is a contest between pride and pride which occurs in every courtship, and the girl usually wins.  True lovers are as certain to return as Bo-Peep’s flock or a systematically deported cat.  Shame-faced, but surely, the man comes back.