For this is the impetuous stunt.
Yet observe how still another seeketh to be more subtile.
Mark how he sitteth afar off and talketh of love in the abstract; how he calleth three times a week, yet remaineth always impersonal; how he praiseth the shape of thine hand and admireth thy rings, yet toucheth not so much as the tips of thy fingers.
“Lo,” he thinketh in his heart, “I shall keep her guessing. Yea, I shall wrack her soul with thoughts of how I may be brought to subjection. And when she can no longer contain her curiosity, then will she seek to lure me, and I shall gather her in mine arms.”
And this is the elusive stunt.
But, I say unto thee, my Daughter, each of these is but as a chainstitch unto a rose pattern, beside him that playeth the frankly devoted.
For all women are unto him as one woman—and that one putty.
Lo, the look of “adoration” in his eyes is like unto the curl in his hair, always there; and he weareth his “protecting manner” as naturally and as constantly as his linen collar.
He is so attentive and the thoughtful thing cometh unto him as second nature.
Yea, though there be twenty damsels in the room, yet shall each be made to think in her heart: