“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.” [Illustration] “How could you like him unless he dared to lose all? If he is sure, the greater part of the compliment is absent. The greater the odds against him, the more it will hurt him to lose, the finer the honor he pays her.” “Yet because he wants to win he must attend to every point. I only wish to defend him against your accessories imputation. There are kinds of courage you wouldn’t wish him to have. He may look an enemy in the eye, but he must not face the woman to whom he proposes if he wishes her to believe that he has a spark of sensibility. I once heard a man say that when he proposed he sat opposite a mirror. The brute!” Miss Velrose’s cameo relaxed, and dissolved into a three-quarter view as her burning blue eyes turned toward me. “Don’t!” I cried. “Don’t look at me that way, or I shall have to stop expounding! You prove that what I say is doubly true. Suppose she looked at _him_ that way when he was in the middle of it?” “Suppose that was part of her test?” “Impossible! Not in that crisis. The presumption is that she has inflicted that at an earlier stage. To be sure, if she wants to pile on the agony there is no one to prevent her. Be honest—shouldn’t you be afraid to live with a man who could look you in the eye when he proposed? Should you expect him to anticipate composedly living with a girl who could look him in the eye when she answered him?”