Chapter III
Man’s Real Attitude Toward the Progress of Woman
The Teacup club came to order with more than its usual reluctance at its next meeting and the president looked severe. “I wish you girls would stop talking about Helena and her affairs,” she said. “I detest gossip, and, besides, I want to hear all about her, too, and we can talk better after the meeting is over. The topic for to-day’s discussion will be, ‘Man’s Real Attitude Toward the Progress of Woman.’”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said the girl with the Roman nose. “Men are such queer creatures that by the time a girl gets to understand them really she is too old to attract their attention. Now, if we all put our heads together—”
“We may attain wisdom without its accompanying wrinkles,” broke in the girl with the dimple in her chin; “that is a good idea, for—”
“It is no real gain to know how to make them bring the proper kind of flowers and confectionery, if you have to spend the money thus saved on the beauty doctor; yes, that is true,” sighed the brown-eyed blonde.
“Widowers, or men who have been engaged several times, are often nice,” said the girl with the eyeglasses.
“Thank you,” said the girl with the dimple in her chin. “I like to do my own training, if it is troublesome. You can’t persuade a widower that his late wife was not a type of all womanhood, and that is horrid, especially if she happens to have had a taste for domestic magazines and molasses candy! That is why a widower is so much less attractive than a widow; she—”
“Has learned that men, save for a few leading traits, are all different,” said the girl with the classic profile. “Yes, matrimony always widens a woman’s views of the opposite sex, while it narrows those of a man.”
“Oh, dear,” said the girl with the Roman nose; “I do wish men would not do one thing and say another. Now, they are always praising domesticity in women, as well as shrinking modesty, and yet—”
“They always overlook the domestic kind of a girl when she does venture among people,” broke in the brown-eyed blonde. “I know it, and as for shyness and modesty, it is only the girl who is bold enough to call attention to those qualities in herself who receives a social reward for them.”