"Did he come as other lovers With his praises low and sweet, Did he woo in the old phrases, Kneeling humbly at my feet-- How my heart would be unfettered, And my thoughts soar free and high, As a bird that beats at morning 'Gainst the gateway of the sky. "He must hold his perfect manhood, He must keep his place of pride; Bring me fond words as a lover, And true words as friend and guide. So in him my fate would meet me, Life's surrender all complete, Fearlessly I'd take my future, And I'd lay it at his feet!" Her ideal lover, so unlike himself, sent a blush of shame tingling to his cheeks. He sprang hastily to his feet and looked down at her from his tall hight sullenly. "You are unlike all the women I have ever met before," he said, with repressed anger. "You would have a man play the master, not the slave." And in his heart he longed to be her master then and compel her love in return for that which glowed in his heart. She looked up at him with a slight smile. "You misunderstand me," she replied. "I could not tolerate a master as you mean it--a tyrant. Still less could I love a slave. My ideal must have manly dignity and gracious pride. He must look like Jean Ingelow's Laurance: "'A mouth for mastery and manful work, A certain brooding sweetness in the eyes, A brow the harbor of grave thought, and hair Saxon of hue.'" "So I must change my looks as well as my nature before I can please my lady," he said with sudden bitterness. "Yes," she answered, with a light and careless laugh, for, to do her justice, she did not dream how deep his love lay in his heart. She believed him weak and fickle, as his face indicated, and as he was. If he had won her, lovely and charming as she was, he must have wearied of her in time, as it was his nature to do; but being unattainable she at once became the one thing precious in his sight, without which he could never know happiness. He went away and left her to her solitude under the orange tree with its glistening green leaves, its waxen-white flowers and golden globes of fruit. She looked a little sadly at the flowers which had fallen from her hands and which her kneeling lover had crushed into the turf. "The great booby," she said indignantly to herself. "He has remorselessly crushed all my beautiful flowers." Was it an omen? CHAPTER XXIII. Julius Revington went away from the presence of the girl he adored, cast down but not destroyed. He had set his mind doggedly on winning her and he was by no means despondent of winning her yet. His grosser, weaker nature could not comprehend the higher, loftier nature of Irene. Her gentle intimation of how he fell short of her ideal had not greatly impressed him except to fill him with a certain amount of sullen jealousy toward some unknown person or other whom it was evident existed in her mind, and possibly in flesh and blood upon the earth.