LOOK BEFORE SHE LEAPS
The Fourteenth of February in Leap Year is a dread-letter day for the shrinking bachelor and the shy (wife-shy) grass widower.
The butterfly-winged statue of Femininity that, for three happy leapless years, he worshiped from a safe distance (at the foot of its pedestal), has come to life, has climbed down from its vestal perch, changed fearfully from cool quiet marble to something of the consistency of warm india rubber—from an adorable image to—the female of the species.
And with all the term implies. The butterfly wings of Psyche, iridescent, like rainbows reflected on mother-of-pearl, have shrivelled and blackened into the umbrella-ribbed wings of the vampire and the petalled lips from which could only be thought to issue the maidenly negative “yes” or the melting affirmative “no”—are twisted into little scarlet snakes that hiss, “Kisssss me my fool!”
“Look before she leaps!” is the Leap-Year slogan of the shrinking Bachelor, and it is a perfectly splendid motto, as mottoes go.
But a motto is like a cure for a cold which is only good to cure a cold that has not yet been caught, and the shrinking one is already as good as caught and his perfectly splendid slogan is of no more use than an icebox to an Esquimaux or a fur coat in Hell.
The Leap-Year Bachelor’s only hope is to feign death. Like the Bear in Æsop, the Female of the Species Human has no use for any but a “live one.”
If he flees he is lost—(or found, according to whether the speech be given to the male or the female actor of the scene,)—and if he be a grass widower, he is made hay while the sun shines.
Now whether Providence intended the instinct of flight for the preservation of the hunted one or as a stimulus to the hunter, will never be known. With wolves and tigers it works both ways, but with the leap-year “Vamp” it works pretty much only one way.