No doubt she had already rebuffed many another as sharply as she had just prevented him from seizing her hand.

If her manner had grown more independent, she had learned to defend herself cleverly.
He would first try to assail her heart with words, and they were at his disposal in black and white.

He had placed in the little box with the breastpin a piece of paper on which he had given expression to his feelings in verse.

Hitherto it had remained unnoticed and fluttered to the ground.

Picking it up, he introduced his suit, after a brief explanation, by reading aloud the lines which he had composed in Brussels to accompany his gifts to her.
It was an easy task, for he had painted rather than written his poetic homage, with beautiful ornaments on the initial letters, and in the most careful red and black Gothic characters, which looked like print.