The girl of to-day therefore knows she must learn to dance well, which is difficult, since dancers are born, not made; or she must go to balls for supper only, or not go to balls at all, _unless_--she plays a really good game of bridge! In which case, her chances for popularity at the bridge tables, which are at all balls to-day, are quite as good as though she were a young Pavlowa in the ballroom. Or perhaps she skates, or hunts, or plays a wonderful game of tennis or golf, each one of which opens a vista leading to popularity, and the possibilities for a "good time" which was after all the mainspring of old-fashioned ballroom success.
And since the day of femininity that is purely ornamental and utterly useless is gone by, it is the girl who does things well who finds life full of interests and of friends and of happiness. The old idea also has passed that measures a girl's popular success by the number of trousered figures around her. It is quality, not quantity, that counts; and the girl who surrounds herself with indiscriminate and possibly "cheap" youths does not excite the envy but the derision of beholders. To the highest type of young girl to-day it makes very little difference whether, in the inevitable "group" in which she is perpetually to be found, there are more men than girls or the opposite.
This does not mean that human nature has changed--scarcely! There always are and doubtless always will be any number of women to whom admiration and flirtation is the very breath of their nostrils, who love to parade a beau just as they love to parade a new dress. But the tendencies of the time do not encourage the flirtatious attitude. It is not considered a triumph to have many love affairs, but rather an evidence of stupidity and bad taste.
A young man playing tennis with a young girl a generation ago would have been forced patiently to toss her gentle balls and keep his boredom to himself, or he would have held her chin in his hand, while he himself stood shivering for hours in three feet of water, and tried his best to disguise his opinion as to the hopelessness of her ever learning to swim.
To-day he would frankly tell her she had better play tennis for a year or two with a "marker" or struggle at swimming by herself, and any sensible girl would take that advice!