Various laboratory note-books yield the same result.  A single entry indicates the general trend of the affair.

MAN calls on GIRL after five weeks of unexplained absence.  She asks no questions, but keeps the conversation impersonal, even after he shows symptoms of wishing to change its character.

MAN. (Finally.) “I haven’t seen you for an awfully long time.”

GIRL.  “Haven’t you?  Now that I think of it, it has been some time.”

MAN.  “How long has it been, I wonder?”

GIRL.  “I haven’t the least idea.  Ten days or two weeks, I guess.”

MAN. (Hastily.) “Oh no, it’s been much longer than that.  Let’s see, it’s”—­(makes great effort with memory)—­“why, it’s five weeks!  Five weeks and three days!  Don’t you remember?”

GIRL.  “I hadn’t thought of it.  It doesn’t seem that long.  How time does fly, doesn’t it!” (Long silence.)

MAN.  “I’ve been awfully busy.  I wanted to come over, but I just couldn’t.”

GIRL.  “I’ve been very busy, too.” (Voluminous detail of her affairs follows, entirely pleasant in character.)

MAN. (Tenderly.) “Were you so busy you didn’t miss me?”

GIRL.  “Why, I can’t say I missed you, exactly, but I always thought of you pleasantly.”

MAN.  “Did you think of me often?”

GIRL. (Laughing.) “I didn’t keep any record of it.  Do you want me to cut a notch in the handle of my parasol every time I think of you?  If all my friends were so exacting, I’d have time for nothing else.  I’d need a new one every week and the house would be full of shavings.  All my fingers would be cut, too.”

MAN. (Unconsciously showing his hand.) “I thought you’d write me a note.”

[Sidenote:  His Short Suit]

GIRL. (Leading his short suit.) “You could have waited on your front steps till the garbage man took you away, and I wouldn’t have written you any note.”

MAN. (With evident sincerity.) “That’s no dream!  I could do just that!” (Proposal follows in due course, MAN making full and complete confession.)

If he is foolish enough to complicate his game with another girl, he loses much more than he gains, for he lowers the whole affair to the level of a flirtation, and destroys any belief the girl may have had in him.  He also forces her to do the same thing, in self-defence.  Flirtation is the only game in which it is advisable and popular to trump one’s partner’s ace.

He who would win a woman must challenge her admiration, prove himself worthy of her regard, appeal to her sympathy—­and then wound her.  She is never wholly his until she realises that he has the power to make her miserable as well as to make her happy, and that love is an infinite capacity for suffering.

A man who does it consciously is apt to overdo it, out of sheer enthusiasm, and if a girl suspects that it is done intentionally, the hurt loses its sting and changes her love to bitterness.  A succession of attempts is also useless, for a man never hurts a woman twice in exactly the same way.  When he has run the range of possible stabs, she is out of his reach—­unless she is his wife.