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Many are the members of the one sex that are entrapped by the wiles of the other; but it often happens that the entrapper afterwards rues the capture as much as—or even more than—the entrapped. So, it often happens that
Girls who are deliberately seeking husbands think love may be won by artifice. Not until well on in years do
Women know that, by men, love and artifice are considered mortal foes.
To win him a wife by artifice would be to a man a thing impossible and abhorrent: yet
To win her a husband by artifice is to a woman a thing quite natural.
But
When (if ever) the man discovers that he was won by artifice, there are apt to be several bad quarters of an hour. For, when all is said and done,
The man, free and easy, thoughtless and untrammeled, knowing he may pick and choose, never chooses till—till—there comes the woman he thinks he wants. Then he says point blank he wants her. Should it ever be revealed to him that his Want was the result of her Artifice, a very different complexion is put upon that Want. On the other hand,
The woman, deprived of the power of choice, trammeled by convention, bound to wait till asked for, quite naturally resorts to artifice. And yet, curiously enough, and a thing incomprehensible by man,
A man whom a woman has won by sheer artifice, she can love to the end of her life. But, after all,