She was only fifteen, and did not understand this adoration, unspoken and unexpressed except by intensified shyness; for he was a very shy boy in the drawing-room, though brimming over with life and fun among his schoolfellows.

His mother's ideals of education did not include French gallantry; he felt at a loss before these Paris-bred, Paris-dressed young ladies, and encumbered by the very strength of his new-found passion.
And yet he possessed advantages, if he had known how to use them.

He was tall and active, light and lithe in gesture, not a clumsy hobbledehoy.
He had the face that caught the eye, in Rome a few years later, of Keats' Severn, no mean judge, surely, of faces and poet's faces.

He was undeniably clever; he knew all about minerals and mountains; he was quite an artist, and a printed poet.

But these things weigh little with a girl of fifteen who wants to be amused; and so she only laughed at John.
He tried to amuse her, but he tried too seriously.