In earnest, or to stir me to distrust,

He flutter’d like her fan at Edith’s beck,

Her silence fill’d with subtlest flattery,

Her vacant hours invaded with himself;

Till all my life, at last, appear’d a plot

To steal upon his absence, and then pluck

Love’s fruit which once his presence only brought.

XXXIII.

And so, henceforth, I less could welcome him.

How could I do it,—with his views of her,