“How droll!” said Miss Velrose, still keeping her profile in position.
“In other words, fancy the most delicate situation in the processes of civilization. He has a certain thing to ask; she has a certain thing to answer. When it has gone so far, it is not so much what he asks as how he asks it. It is like lighting a Welsbach lamp. Sometimes it blazes up in a yellow, smoky flame. Then you have to turn it out and start again. You never can tell why the flame acts so. The flame has its own reasons for coquetting with the match.”
Miss Velrose gave a little snort.
“Of course the girl has the advantage. That is as it should be. It is like one of those suits in court where the defendant has the affirmative. She knows what he is going to ask. He doesn’t know what she is going to answer—then. She doesn’t know how many times he can be made to ask—whether there is more than one ask in him. There is a presumptive limit to his persistency and to her discrimination. If a girl is far enough gone, time, place and manner are of no importance. If she doesn’t like him quite so well, she might waive time and place, perhaps. There are infinite variations.”
“I was afraid you were going through them all,” said Miss Velrose.
“But above everything,” I pursued in defiance of Miss Velrose’s irony, “he must be definite. I once heard a girl say, ‘I believe I was proposed to last night, but I am not sure.’ Some men weakly dread to ask the old question in the old way. They introduce dangerous artistic variations.”
“Generally,” declared Miss Velrose, “it isn’t art; it is caution. They wish to be dead sure before they are quite definite. They are like governments who throw out a hint of a proposed movement to see how much and how many of the newspapers will howl.”
“You think he should plunge in with a gambler’s defiance. You justify the gambling instinct when woman is the stakes.”
“It is cowardly to want to be sure.”
“It is worse than cowardly, for a man never can be sure. Yet a proposal is a big investment to a sensitive man. He can’t afford as many proposals as she can.”