“Do you know that it would be a great relief, if not a real comfort, to a man in certain circumstances if he could know just when a woman was out of the game? His perplexity in the matter of the greatest game of all, when he does not know whether she really is playing or only is loitering about with the players, sometimes is one of the most distressing spectacles in life.” [Illustration] “It seems to me,” said the Left-Over Girl, with a little shrug, “that he generally should be able to tell whether she is playing or not. As for knowing whether she ever is going to play any more, that seems to me like more knowledge than he is entitled to.” “Possibly; but as I have suggested, it would save much time and many doubts, if nothing more,—reduce the sum of popular skepticism. And even the spectator, who is not presumed to be in the way of playing, might have a simple human curiosity in the matter.” [Illustration] “Oh, the spectator always has curiosity, and the spectator is an element to be counted, too; there are so many of them, and they influence the players in one way or another so much. But I don’t think the spectators have any more right than the players to know when any one in particular is out of the game for good.” “As for that, I much doubt whether any one is to be counted as out of the game for good. I heard yesterday of a Miss Nottingby who has just been married at the age of eighty-three. One never can tell. But that is not the point. It is the attitude of mind that counts. That a woman should think that she is out of the game, or have decided definitely that she will not play any more, must be of great importance even when the fact is not known, as we must suppose generally happens. My point is that if the facts were more generally known various beneficent results might accrue.” “To whom?” “To all of us, including the seceders. The uncertainty breeds cynicism. Of course I know that there is something piquing about the mystery surrounding the motives of the unmarried, especially the motives of the unmarried woman. But although this is so entertaining in itself, although the new old maid is the most cheerful, the most useful, and the most fascinating sphinx of the century, I feel at times as if there may be something disintegrating in her complacence and in the complacence of society regarding her.” [Illustration] “How good it is of you to be so altruistically grieved!” “Why don’t you ask me why I am saying this to you?” “Because I know, and because it is so much more amusing to have you say it unassisted.” “Now, do you know that I should have expected to find you superior to a proclivity so purely feminine as that. To make him say things unassisted! From the dawn of time woman has delighted to do that.” There was a haze of thought in her eyes. “I dare say you never have stopped to think that when he is assisted he says so much more than he means.” “I thought you were going to say, ‘than he ought to.’”