THE GIRL THAT DISAPPEARS
as well as interest. He represents to her a certain domesticity. He is the one human being with whom she is on a sincere basis. Living in a world of lies, hypocrisy, and pretense, she stands in need of some one man to whom she can reveal her true mind.
Often the protector is also the "cadet," and in many cases he is the legal husband. Case after case has come to the knowledge of investigators where perfectly respectable girls have married in love and good faith men whose deliberate intention it was to live on the proceeds of their shame.
The laws against procuring are very strict, but making laws and enforcing laws are two radically different propositions. In enforcing laws on this particular subject, the police confront that same psychological phenomenon that saves many a protector from prison—the women, from fear or fancied loyalty or shame, will not testify against them. Now and then they do turn on the cadet, but I
64
