It may be a charming sight to behold a girl stirring cheese in the chafing-dish, wearing an air of deep concern when it “bunnies” at the sides and requires still more skill.  It may also be attractive to see white fingers weave wonders with fine linen and delicate silks, with pretty eagerness as to shade and stitch.

But in the after-years, when his divinity, redolent of the kitchen, meets him at the door, with hair dishevelled and fingers bandaged, it is subtly different from the chafing-dish days, and the crisp chops, generously black with charcoal, are not as good as her rarebits used to be.  The memory of the silk and fine linen also fades somewhat, in the presence of darning which contains hard lumps and patches which immediately come off.

It has become the fashion to speak of woman as the eager hunter, and man as the timid, reluctant prey.  The comic papers may have started it, but modern society certainly lends colour to the pretty theory.  It is frequently attributed to Mr. Darwin, but he is at times unjustly blamed by those who do not read his pleasing works.

The complexities in man’s personal equation are caused by variants of three emotions; a mutable fondness for women, according to temperament and opportunity, a more uniform feeling toward money, and the universal, devastating desire—­the old, old passion for food.

[Sidenote:  The Key of Happiness]

The first variant is but partially under the control of any particular woman, and the less she concerns herself with the second, the better it is for both, but she who stimulates and satisfies the third variant holds in her hands the golden key of happiness.  No woman need envy the Sphinx her wisdom if she has learned the uses of silence and never asks a favour of a hungry man.

A woman makes her chief mistake when she judges a man by herself and attributes to him indirection and complexity of motive.  When she wishes to attract a particular man, she goes at it indirectly.  She makes friends of “his sisters, his cousins, and his aunts,” and assumes an interest in his chum.  She ignores him at first and thus arouses his curiosity.  Later, she condescends to smile upon him and he is mildly pleased, because he thinks he has been working for that very smile and has finally won it.  In this manner he is lured toward the net.

[Sidenote:  The Wise Virgin]

When a girl systematically and effectively feeds a man, she is leading trumps.  He insensibly associates her with his comfort and thus she becomes his necessity.  When a man seeks a woman’s society it is because he has need of her, not because he thinks she has need of him; and the parlour of the girl who realises it, is the envy of every unattached damsel on the street.  If the wise one is an expert with the chafing-dish, she may frequently bag desirable game, while the foolish virgins who have no alcohol in their lamps are hunting eagerly for the trail.