His father, from whom he kept nothing, approved the verses, and did not disapprove his views on the young lady.  Indeed, it is quite plain, from the correspondence of the two gentlemen, that Mr. Domecq intended his friend and partner’s son to become his own son-in-law.  He had the greatest respect for the Ruskins, and every reason for desiring to link their fortunes still more closely with those of his own family.  But to Mrs. Ruskin, with her religious feelings, it was intolerable, unbelievable, that the son whom she had brought up in the nurture and admonition of the strictest Protestantism should fix his heart on an alien in race and creed.  The wonder is that their relations were not more strained; there are few young men who would have kept unbroken allegiance to a mother whose sympathy failed them at such a crisis.

As the year went on his passion seemed to grow in the absence of the beloved object.  His only plan of winning her was to win his spurs first; but as what?  Clearly his forte, it seemed, was in writing.  If he could be a successful writer of romances, of songs, of plays, surely she would not refuse him.  And so he began another romantic story, “Velasquez, the Novice,” opening with the Monks of St. Bernard, among whom had been, so the tale ran, a mysterious member, whose papers, when discovered, made him out the hero of adventures in Venice.  He began a play, which was to be another great work, “Marcolini.”  He had no playwright’s eye for situations, but the conversation is animated, and the characters finely drawn, with more discrimination than one would expect from so young an author.

This work was interrupted at the end of Act III. by pressing calls to other studies.  But it was not that he had forgotten Adele.  From time to time he wrote verses to her or about her; and as in 1838 she was sent to school with her sisters at Newhall, near Chelmsford, to “finish” her in English, in that August he saw her again.  She had lost some of her first girlish prettiness, but that made no difference.  And when the Domecqs came to Herne Hill at Christmas, he was as deeply in love as ever.  But she still laughed at him.

His father was fond of her, liked all the sisters, and thought much of them as girls of fine character, but he liked Adele best.  He seems to have been fond of his partner, too, worked very hard in his interests, and behaved very well to his heirs afterwards through many years of responsible and difficult management of their business.  And at this time, when he went down to the convent school in Essex, as he often did, he must have had opportunities for seeing how hopeless the case was.  Mr. Domecq recognised it, too, but thought, it seems (they manage these things differently in France), that any of his daughters would do as well, and early in 1839 entertained an offer from Baron Duquesne, a rich and handsome young Frenchman.  They kept this from John, fearing he would break down at the news, so fully did they recognise the importance of the affair.  They even threw other girls in his way.  It was not difficult, for by now he had made some mark in magazine literature, and was a steady, rising young man, with considerable expectations.  But he could not think of any other girl.