He thought of Tennyson's "Gardener's daughter." "One arm aloft---- Gowned in pure white that fitted to the shape-- Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood.
The full day dwelt on her brows and sunned Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe bloom, And doubled his own warmth against her lips, And on the beauteous wave of such a breast As never pencil drew.

Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young." He repeated the lines as he stood watching her, and then he went nearer and called: "Madaline!" Could he doubt that she loved him?
Her fair face flushed deepest crimson; but, instead of turning to him, she moved half coyly, half shyly away.
"How quick you are," he said, "to seize every opportunity of evading me! Do you think you can escape me, Madaline?
Do you think my love is so weak, so faint, so feeble, that it can be pushed aside lightly by your will?
Do you think that, if you tried to get to the other end of the world, you could escape me ?" Half blushing, half laughing, trembling, yet with a happy light in her blue eyes, she said: "I think you are more terrible than any one I know." "I am glad that you are growing frightened, and are willing to own that you have a master--that is as it should be.

I want to talk to you, Madaline.

You evade me lest you should be compelled to speak to me; you lower those beautiful eyes of yours, lest I should be made happy by looking into them.

If you find it possible to avoid my presence, to run away from me, you do.