Gibson hat. Where once girls pretended to know less and to have
experienced less than they actually had, now they pretend to more.
Therein lie all the law and the social profits. Therefore Rule One of
these dauntless rebels reads: It is not an insult but a compliment for
an admirer to explain that his intentions are frankly carnivorous.

To my ten-year-old technique had still been clinging the cobwebs of
the past, when even Launcelot's intentions were painted as slightly
honorable. But now--the shades of Alfred Lord Tennyson help us!--it
has become the smart procedure to take Man's bold bad intentions right
out into the conversation and pretend to be tempted by them.

The truth of the matter is that those pseudo-engagements of the
fox-trot decade really were furnishing a charge account psychology.
Man could close his eyes and whisper, "Some day, my own," and still go
nicely on a _Ladies' Home Journal_ cover design of "Under the
Mistletoe." But, when our flapper is not even pretending to him that
she is going to marry him, and when he is not even pretending to
himself that he is going to marry her--well, the whole sex game has
then been put on a frank cash and carry basis.

Mark well, however, these worldly-wise young things of this the third
year of our Prohibition are not necessarily less virtuous technically
than their own crinolined grandmothers. Only these days they are not
bragging about their virtue.

"And have all the men afraid of you, for fear they'll be responsible
for teaching you something," explains one practical miss. "Men like to
find you in stock, ready-taught. We know how to take care of
ourselves--so we let them think what they want." In short, the whole