At the hour when Melechsala used to visit him, the Count kept an eager eye on the entrance, but the door of the Seraglio did not open. He waited the second day; then the third: the door of the Seraglio was as if walled up within. Had not the Count of Gleichen been a sheer idiot in flower-language, he would readily have found the key to this surprising behaviour of the Princess. By presenting the flower to her, he had, in fact, without knowing a syllable of the matter, made a formal declaration of love, and that in no Platonic sense. For when an Arab lover, by some trusty hand, privily transmits a _Mushirumi_ flower to his mistress, he gives her credit for penetration enough to discover the only rhyme which exists in the Arabian language for the word. This rhyme is _Ydskerumi_, which, delicately rendered, means _reward of love_.[24] To this invention it must be conceded, that there cannot be a more compendious method of proceeding in the business than this of the _Mushirumi_, which might well deserve the imitation of our Western lovers. The whole insipid scribbling of _Billets-doux_, which often cost their authors so much toil and brain-beating, often when they come into the wrong hand are pitilessly mangled by hard-hearted jesters, often by the fair receivers themselves mistreated or falsely interpreted, might by this means be dispensed with. It need not be objected that the _Mushirumi_, or _Muscadine-hyacinth_, flowers but rarely and for a short time in our climates; because an imitation of it might be made by our Parisian or native gumflower-makers, to supply the wants of lovers at all seasons of the year; and an inland trade in this domestic manufacture might easily afford better profit than our present speculations with America. Nor would a Chevalier in Europe have to dread that the presenting of so eloquent a flower might be charged upon him as a capital offence, for which his life might have to answer, as in the East could very simply happen. Had not Princess Melechsala been so kind and soft a soul, or had not omnipotent Love subdued the pride of the Sultan's daughter, the Count, for this flower-gallantry, innocently as on his part it was intended, must have paid with his head. But the Princess was in the main so little indignant at receiving this expressive flower, that on the contrary the fancied proffer struck a chord in her heart, which had long been vibrating before, and drew from it a melodious tone. Yet her virgin modesty was hard put to proof, when her favourite, as she supposed, presumed to entreat of her the reward of love. It was on this account that she had turned away her face at his proposal. A purple blush, which the veil had hidden from the Count, overspread her tender cheeks, her snow-white bosom heaved, and her heart beat higher beneath it. Bashfulness and tenderness were fighting a fierce battle within it, and her embarrassment was such that she could not utter a word.