I have found
that out for certain to-day."
"It is false," exclaimed Selma, with a tragic intonation. "You do not
understand. I have no wish to be a social success. I should abhor to
spend my life after the manner of you and your associates. What I object
to, what I complain of, is that, in spite of your fine words and
pretended admiration of me, you have preferred these people, who are
exclusive without a shadow of right, to me who was your friend, and that
you have chosen to ignore me for the sake of them, and behaved as if you
thought I was not their equal or your equal. That is not friendship, it
is snobbishness--un-American snobbishness."
"It is very amusing. Amusing yet depressing," continued Flossy, without
heed to this asseveration. "You have proved one of my ideals to be a
delusion, which is sad." She had arisen and stood gently swaying pendent
by its crook her gay parasol, with her head on one side, and seeming for
once to be choosing her words judicially. "When we met first and I
nearly rushed into your arms, I was fascinated, and I said to myself
that here was the sort of American woman of whom I had dreamed--the sort
of woman I had fondly imagined once that I might become. I saw you were
unsophisticated and different from the conventional women to whom I was
accustomed, and, even at first, the things you said every now and then
gave me a creepy feeling, but you were inspiring to look at--though now
that the scales have fallen from my eyes I wonder at my infatuation--and
I continued to worship you as a goddess on a pedestal.
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