O ‘no’ is your final answer. Bess? This is the end
of it all?”
“Now, Dick, don’t think too hard of me, I’m truly sorry
that I can’t care for you in the way you wish, but you see
each girl must have her ideal, and the man I love must be
strong 1 and brave, uniting - with these the gentleness of a
strong nature, while—”
“Oh, I see! I fail to reach that ideal! Well, Bess, T
suppose I have appeared to be a fop, but some day, perhaps,
you will be pleased to alter your opinion, at least I hope so.’’
“I didn’t mean that at all, Dick. If you had onl}' - given
me a chance to explain, but you men are so unreasonable!”
Bessie Clifton had somewhat of a romantic disposition,
but yet was more realistic than she was aware. She pos
sessed a-brig’ht, sunny temperament, as her friends would
testify, and hated to give pain, especially to this, one of her
dearest friends. She was not “divinely fair” with a
“queenly mien, ” but withal was a pleasant sight to look
upon—and, of course, to the eyes of love she must have been
surpassingly beautiful.
It was with,drooping spirits Dick left the Clifton man
sion that nigdit.
“What an ass I made of myself,” he mused. “Why
couldn’t I have taken the refusal like a man? I’m sure I
didn’t help my cause any. Would have been better to let
her think I didn’t care so much. So she thinks I’m only an
ornament to society—and scarcely that! I suppose I lit in
some place in the social wheel and so—”
“Oh, I beg your pardon.”
“I say, Harding old chap, what’s the matter, come
bumping along in that fashion?”