"Very true," rejoined the disenchanted lover. "You certainly had a right to choose a daughter for yourself; though I could hardly have imagined that any amount of attraction would have overcome _such_ obstacles in the mind of a lady of your education and refined views of life. Excuse my using the word 'counterfeit.' I was slightly disturbed when it escaped me."
"It requires no apology," she replied. "I am aware that society would take the same view of my proceeding that you do. As for my education, I have learned to consider it as, in many respects, false. As for my views, they have been greatly modified by this experience. I have learned to estimate people and things according to their real value, not according to any merely external accidents."
Mr. Green extended his hand, saying: "I will bid you farewell, Mrs. Delano; for, under existing circumstances, it becomes necessary to deny myself the pleasure of again calling upon you. I must seek to divert my mind by new travels, I hardly know where. I have exhausted Europe, having been there three times. I have often thought I should like to look on the Oriental gardens and bright waters of Damascus. Everything is so wretchedly new, and so disagreeably fast, in this country! It must be refreshing to see a place that has known no changes for three thousand years."
They clasped hands with mutual adieus; and the unfortunate son of wealth, not knowing what to do in a country full of noble work, went forth to seek a new sensation in the slow-moving caravans of the East.
A few days afterward, when Flora returned from taking a lesson in oil-colors, she said: "How do you suppose I have offended Mr. Green? When I met him just now, he touched his hat in a very formal way, and passed on, though I was about to speak to him."
"Perhaps he was in a hurry," suggested Mrs. Delano.
"No, it wasn't that," rejoined Flora. "He did just so day before yesterday, and he can't always be in a hurry. Besides, you know he is never in a hurry; he is too much of a gentleman."
Her friend smiled as she answered, "You are getting to be quite a judge of aristocratic manners, considering you were brought up in a bird-cage."
The young girl was not quite so ready as usual with a responsive smile. She went on to say, in a tone of perplexity: "What _can_ have occasioned such a change in his manner? You say I am sometimes thoughtless about politeness. Do you think I have offended him in any way?"