He would have cast himself before her as a slave begging an owner, but for something in her carriage which constantly prevented him.

At one time he read it as an unforgotten grief, at another as a cherished affection, and trembled at the thought of the agonies that might be in store for him.
Weeks passed, and he had not made one inquiry after a situation for her.
It was not because he would gladly have, prolonged the present arrangement of things, but that he found it almost impossible to bring himself to talk about her.

If she would but accept him, he thought--then there would be no need! But he dared not urge her--mainly from fear of failure, not at all from excess of modesty, seeing he soberly believed such love and devotion as his, worth the acceptance of any woman--even while-he believed also, that to be loved of a true woman was the one only thing which could make up for the enormous swindle of life, in which man must ever be a sorrow to himself, as ever lagging behind his own child, his ideal.

Even for this, the worm that must forever lie gnawing in the heart of humanity, it would be consolation enough to pluck together the roses of youth; they had it in their own power to die while their odor was yet red.

Why did she repel him?
Doubtless, he concluded over and over again, because, with her lofty ideal of love, a love for this world only seemed to her a love not worth the stooping to take.