Yes, she is cool. The caterer’s sign “Weddings Furnished,” does not, I fear, ever give her a thrill. She asks no one to furnish a wedding for her. She seldom appears to be in the mental situation described by the thought-curers as one of “intense expectancy.” And she is, it must be frankly admitted, developing a keen, a disconcerting, critical sense, an inevitable result to be sure, yet carrying its own bewildering effects. This is the American spirit, the inquiring spirit, the tendency to insist upon the re-establishment of standards. The American girl always is in the attitude of being willing to admit the superiority of man--if he can prove it. Here enters her Americanism. Her contention is that you cannot transmit relativity. She summons science to show that new criteria are necessary, and she continually is calling man into the lists to defend his titles, to repeat his victories, or surrender the trophies. If you look at it squarely it simply is iconoclasm, a social form of image-breaking, the image in this case being traditional man. Observe, however, that woman does not actually destroy the image. She tentatively takes it down from the pedestal. Who knows but that, having dusted it off, she may, after all, decide to put it back on the pedestal again? Meanwhile, man is under scrutiny. It is a trying moment. It is like an examination in a postgraduate course. The American girl is examining man for a new degree. And man has no choice but to struggle for it. He absolutely is without an alternative. He must face the most exacting social service examination ever imposed by human caution or sociological skepticism. To meet the test will be to wear a proud title. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] VIII THE NEW OLD MAID [Illustration] The complacence of the unmarried is regarded by many as one of the most distressing spectacles in modern life. Perhaps there is some resentment of this as an apparent lack of faith, or at least of hope; others may be inclined to add, of charity. Eliminate these from woman and it may be difficult to mend the situation by making her president of a kindergarten society.