As a rule men are great fools with women. They are too cautious. Women don't want to be wooed, they love best to be conquered. Nearly all of them have an inherited instinct which makes them feel that they are born to be the weak and the yielding. They like to feel themselves under a man's strong and masterful will. Quite involuntarily they despise the men who meekly sue for their favours. How often in their hearts must they have cried 'Fool,' after the man who has been frightened away by those barricades of virtue, behind which they entrench themselves, only because they love to be taken by force of arms.
But with Marie there was no need for extreme measures. I knew that the day would come when of her own free will she would seek my arms, as the home to which she naturally belonged. I knew it by the melting way in which she met my glance and pressed my hand. I knew it the first day—when she had neither seen nor heard me—as I stood behind her and noticed her body quiver and tremble from her head to the tips of her long nervous fingers.
The strategy of an impetuous warrior was not needed here—besides, the flower-sprinkled blouse softened my heart. I did not even wish that too soon she should be mine. As the gardener loves to watch a rare flower grow and develop, and, without touching the bud, will carefully remove a sprig or softly uncover a leaf, taking care that it
