Cor and Aravis are different from Shezan and Ilgamuth in that they already know that they're both sexually attracted to each other and capable of living in a functional partnership for the long haul. They don't need the testing/dating period of the dance, which is why Cor jumped to offering two gifts right off the bat and left jesses along with the bells, and also why Aravis didn't bother rejecting that first gift. But yeah, he was uncertain that she really was doing what he thought she was doing when she started insulting his manhood and otherwise flirting Calormene-style, because he only knows courting secondhand from folktales and gossip he heard on the infrequent occasions Arsheesh took him into the nearby village. That's why it took him a while to respond. Well, and he also had to acquire the right perfume without asking her for help, which was a little complicated.

I think Cor did half-expect Aravis to reject his first gift, just because that's the pattern in stories -- it usually goes by the rule of threes, so there are two rejections before an acceptance. (That's not a requirement, btw, nor even necessarily the most common pattern in real life; it's just tidy on a literary level.) But he's not stupid enough to look a gift horse in the mouth when she comes to find him wearing the perfume and the bells. *grin*