The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage Part 2

A Danger.

Women are very quick to see when they are being courted for their sons or brothers, and they do not always like it. It is discourteous, and very transparent, to send an invitation to a girl the day after her brother has come home on leave in which you hope "that Captain Boyle will be able to accompany her," when practically you have ignored her existence since the last time he was at home. It is not kind or considerate to try and monopolise the society of any man whose {28} business or profession only permits of his being at home at long intervals. A girl may want to have him with her very much indeed, but she should not be piqued and feel injured if he excuses himself on the ground of having to take his sister out, or spend his evening with his parents. He will be all the better husband for this courtesy to his own relations. Of course his people may be very dull, possibly unpleasant, and in that case real friendship will be a labour, if not an impossibility; but, for the man's sake, they must be treated in such a way as not to hurt either his feelings or their own. The same, naturally, holds good with regard to her belongings.

The Man who Lives in Rooms

is a much easier person to cultivate. You take it for granted that he is dull, that his dinners are not well cooked, and that he misses the delights of home. So you ask him to drop in when he likes. "We are nearly always in to tea;" or "We dine at 7.30, and if you take us as we are, there will be a place for you." As soon as a man sees that this sort of invitation is really meant he will not be slow to avail himself of it. Not that he will come to dinner every other night, but he will drop in to tea, and turn up in the course of the evening for a little music and a chat. He gets into the habit of coming in on Sunday afternoons, and generally ends by staying to supper.

As a Host.

All this means a great deal to a lone bachelor, and makes him long for a home of his own. In return for this delightful hospitality he will, perhaps, ask a sister to stay with him and give a tea-party in his rooms. Later on he will have seats for a theatre, and arrange a nice little dinner or supper in town. Where dramatic delights are out of reach he will plan a river or cycling expedition, he will entertain his friends at a local cricket match, he will inspire his fellow bachelors to give a dance; and there will be only one guest whose presence is of any importance to him.

He will not let it appear that he is paying a debt; he will {29} imply, rather, that the ladies are conferring a favour upon him. He will consult her mother as to many arrangements, and make sure that all the guests are to her liking. He will not be afraid of asking a possible rival, who might be more dangerous when absent than present. While thus entertaining the lady of his choice, the suitor must discern nicely between paying her special honour and taking it for granted that she already belongs to him. He must not advertise the fact that the party is given for her, by neglecting his other guests, or by omitting pleasant courtesies to less-favoured maidens.

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CHAPTER IV

_Intercourse with (1) The Home Girl; (2) The Bachelor Girl; (3) The Business Girl; (4) The Student or Professional Girl--Friends who become Lovers._

The Home Girl.

As has already been said, the would-be lover will do well to study the workings of his lady's home. If she has many domestic duties to perform he will arrange his spare time to fit in with hers. He will not call at such times as would be inconvenient and run the risk of ructions, simply because he knows _she_ will be glad to see him. He will not look aggrieved if she refuses to go out cycling with him because she has promised to take the little ones out blackberrying. He will seize a golden chance and go with them. When he is at her home, he will not act as if the whole place belonged to him, and he will be careful not to become a bore.

Men of leisure, and men whose professions place them on confidential terms, such as doctors and clergymen, have the greatest opportunities of knowing the Home Girl at her best, and at her worst. The last two see her under conditions that show what she is really made of, and not merely what she appears in society, for they have access to the house in times of trouble when outsiders are excluded.

The Bachelor Girl

is pretty sure to be out of her teens, but not necessarily in the thirties. She will probably have girl chums who, like herself, are living in a more or less independent fashion. She sometimes indulges in anti-matrimonial theories, and it may prove most interesting to convert her from the error of her ways. A man has such beautifully sure ground under his feet when she has given him plainly to understand that she prefers {31} friendship to love. A would-be suitor will find his opportunities of intercourse regulated by her standard of conventionality. She is free to make her own life, with her own code of conduct, her own ideas of responsibility.

She meets him frankly on what she deems common ground; but he sees the other side of things, for men and women never can and never will look at life from the same point of view. His knowledge should make him all the more jealous of her fair fame, but he must walk warily lest he wound her womanly dignity. She will do nothing wrong, her heart is too pure for that, but he must not let her do what may even appear to be wrong. At first she will be a little intoxicated with the sense of her own freedom. He must never take advantage of that, for he knows that the woman always pays.

They will probably include one of her chums in their cosy tea-parties at her rooms, and there will be no secret of his coming and going. He will see her home from the theatre, concert, or lecture, but he will not go and smoke in her flat till the small hours. He will discriminate as to the restaurant where they have lunch together, and he will not invite her to a _tete-a-tete_ supper after the play. She will entertain him at her club, and he will guard against the a.s.sumption of rights that are not his.

The Business Girl.

The daily life of the Business Girl is of necessity a regular one, and the man who wants to know more of her knows where to find her. If by chance he is employed in the same firm, he has daily chances of making headway with her. He can often render her little services, help her over rough places, and make life as pleasant again for her. All this can be so managed that no one, save perhaps a lynx-eyed rival, will know anything about it. He will certainly not make her the talk of the office by bragging of his conquest, and laying wagers as to his chance of success, or get her into hot water by hindering her at her work.

She will keep her own counsel, and not giggle with other girls when he comes along. Of course she will tell her special friend all about it, for what is the good of a love-affair if you cannot talk to some one on the all-engrossing subject?

{32} She will not display the b.u.t.tonhole he bought her on the way from the train to all the other girls as his gift, nor will she be foolish and give herself away by hanging about his room door in the hopes of seeing him. She will always find time for a word or a bright glance when they do meet, by accident of course.

He will not make her conspicuous by always travelling home with her, but he will be at hand to pilot her through a fog, to help her out of a crowd, or to get her a place when there is anything to be seen. He will make it plain that he thinks of her, and is ever on the alert to play the part of her cavalier.

She is practical and self-reliant, as a rule, but she does not object to be courted. When they plan a Sat.u.r.day outing she will not propose what she knows to be beyond his means, but she will pardon him for a little extravagance in her honour.

Social Inequality.

When a man in a superior position begins paying attentions to a girl filling a subordinate post, he will probably expose her to the jealousy, and possible malice, of her fellows; but this will depend greatly upon the girl herself. In this case the suitor must steer clear of anything like patronage. If she is worthy of his notice she is worthy of his respect and consideration. He will be careful not to take her to any place of amus.e.m.e.nt where she would feel out of her element, or run the risk of being snubbed by any of his own rich friends. The son of a wealthy merchant would not give as much pleasure to a girl earning thirty shillings in his father's office if he took her to supper at the Carlton, as if he selected some less magnificent restaurant. She would feel more at home on the river, or at Earl's Court, than on the lawn at Hurlingham. He would show her that his pleasure was to be with her, and he would wait till he could call her his wife before introducing her to a new world.

The Student or Professional Girl.

There is a little country called Bohemia, whose laws rule the kingdom of Art, and whose government seems a trifle erratic to those who live outside the charmed circle. Students of {33} music, painting, sculpture, and the drama have a code of Etiquette that may be called adaptable; but it does not follow that because a man is an artist he must therefore be deficient in courtesy to women; nor is it yet inevitable that when a girl develops a talent for drawing she should violate all the proprieties.

Falling in love with music-masters is a very old story, but it is not quite a thing of the past. A man has no right to work on the emotions of his pupil merely for his own amus.e.m.e.nt or to gratify his vanity. He may find that it infuses more soul into her music, but she is a woman as well as an artist. Where both have the artistic temperament highly developed, it is playing with fire indeed.

_The Dramatic Student_ is thrown into very mixed society. She is left with a great deal of spare time on her hands when merely understudying, or out of an engagement. She is forced to keep late hours, and may be exposed to many unpleasant experiences. I know of one man who was so distressed at the girl of his heart having to cross London by the last 'bus every night that he changed his quarters and took rooms as near to where she was living as he could, in order to be able to see her home without making the fact unduly conspicuous.

This was a delicate act of courtesy, and I am glad to say that they are now happily married.

_The Medical Student and Hospital Nurse_ are generally women with a special turn of mind, and in the former case the work of training is so absorbing that it can hardly be run concurrently with the delights of courtship. The nurse soon learns to take care of herself, and has many special opportunities of studying the lords of creation. She sees some of the n.o.blest and most gifted of them at their work, the wildest of them at play, and all and sundry in their hour of weakness; and this experience should be borne in mind by the man who seeks to win her. She will not regard him as a demi-G.o.d, nor as a hero of romance.

She will not appeal to the man who wants a mere plaything in his wife.

She will have far higher gifts than the society doll, but she will be a woman to be wooed, and worth the winning.

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Friends who become Lovers.

There are those who say that friendship excludes love, and there is a kind of friendship which can only exist where love is impossible and undesired. On the other hand we know that sometimes the boy and girl who have grown up side by side, who have shared each other's pranks and penalties, do wake up one day to find a new element a.s.serting itself in their intercourse. A certain shyness springs up between them only to be dispelled by fuller, sweeter comradeship. This development sometimes takes place during a period of separation, or when a possible rival appears on the scene. It usually a.s.sumes concrete form in the man's mind first. He may hide his love under the guise of friendship till he feels he has a right to make it known. It may be that he has to go abroad to seek the wherewithal to start a home, and when he has succeeded he will write some such letter as this:--

"My Dear Clari,--When I threw up my berth at home you wondered why I was in such a hurry to leave the old country, and home, and you, and it was very hard not to tell you the real reason. I came out here to make enough money to set up housekeeping, and, dear, I want you to come and help me, now I have succeeded so far. I know it is a tremendous thing to ask, and that I am entirely unworthy of the sacrifice you would be making; but, dear, we know each other pretty well by this, and I hope you can trust yourself to me. If you only knew how I have longed to tell you this through the last two years of our sweet, but to me unsatisfying, friendship you would not keep me in suspense any longer than you can help. You have been the one thought and object of my life ever since I came out, and I have lived in fear of some other fellow getting in before me.

I think I must always have loved you, it seems a part of myself, but it was your first ball that woke me up.

Let me know soon, dear.--Ever and always your devoted

"GORDON."

However the change from friendship to love comes about, the man must be just as courteous as if she had only crossed {35} his path in the fulness of her young womanhood. He must not take her for granted because he knew her in pinafores, nor slight her sensibilities because he taught her to climb trees. If he is negligent other men will supply his deficiencies. As a lover he is bound to appear in a new light, and he must look to it that he does not suffer by the change. The friend ought to make the best lover, for he knows the tastes and weaknesses, the temperament and surroundings of the woman he has chosen. They will be bound by countless old a.s.sociations, but this very familiarity may breed, not contempt, but a matter-of-fact mental att.i.tude that will rob courtship of more than half its charm.

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CHAPTER V