something beyond this which is not harmless but
detestable, and that is the deliberate playing on sexual attraction in
order to extract homage and to demonstrate power. A girl will sometimes
play on a man as a pianist on his instrument, put a strain on him that
is intolerable, fray his nerves and destroy his self-control, while she
herself, protected not by virtue but frigidity, complacently affirms that
she "can take care of herself." The blatant dishonesty of the business
never strikes her for a moment. She takes all she wants and gives nothing
in return, and honestly believes that this is because she is "virtuous."
That she is a thief--and one who combines theft with torture--never occurs
to her; yet it is true.

Observe--I do not suggest that it would be creditable if she did "pay." It
would be no more so than Herod's payment of John the Baptist's head. But
although it is wrong to take something you want and give in return what you
ought not to give, it would be a curious sort of morality that would go on
to argue that it is right to take all and give nothing. Both transactions
are immoral and one is dishonest.

On the other hand, it must be remembered that a parasite _must_ take all
and give nothing or as little as possible. That is the law of its being.
And so long as men resent the independence of women, and enjoy the position
of perpetual paymaster, so long will many women be driven to use the only
weapon they have left. Moreover, it is fair to say--and this is why I plead
for light--that many of them are genuinely ignorant that they are playing
with fire. The more frigid they are themselves, the less are they able to
gauge the forces they are arousing; the more ignorant they are, the less
possible is it for them to be chivalrous to those whose strength and
weakness they alike misunderstand. The half-knowledge, the instinctive
arts, which girls sometimes display continually mislead men into thinking
them a great deal cleverer than they are. Each is ignorant of the other's
weakness, and each puts the other in danger because of that ignorance.

I once spoke to a big meeting of girls in the neighbourhood of a big camp,
during the war; and reflecting on the difficult position of the men--their
segregation from ordinary feminine society, their distance from their
homes, their unoccupied hours, and the inevitable nervous and emotional
strain of preparing for the front--I tried to make the girls realize how
hard they