"May I ask why?" queried the young man in anger and astonishment.
"Because, sir, it would not be agreeable to either my daughter herself, to
her mother or to me."
"Then I must say, sir, that you are all three hard to please. But pray,
sir, what is the objection?"
"Do you insist upon knowing?"
"I do, sir."
"Then let me answer your query with another. Would you pay your addresses
to a young woman--however wealthy, beautiful or high-born--whose moral
character was not better, whose life had been no purer than your own?"
"Of course not!" exclaimed Faude, coloring violently, "but who
expects----"
"I do, sir; I expect the husbands of my daughters to be as pure and
stainless as my sons' wives."
"I'm as good as the rest, sir. You'll not find one young fellow in five
hundred who has sowed fewer wild oats than I."
"I fear that may be true enough, but it does not alter my decision,"
returned Mr. Travilla, intimating by a bow and a slight wave of the hand,
that he considered the interview at an end.
Faude withdrew in anger, but with an intensified desire to secure the
coveted prize; the more difficult of acquisition, the more desirable it
seemed.
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