As she turned away, he stooped quickly and picked
up the white rose she had worn where it had fallen on the path.
CHAPTER XII
THE FOURTH AND THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY
For the next few weeks Mr. Calvert had little time--and, indeed, little
inclination--to see Adrienne. The discovery that he loved her had
brought pain, not happiness with it. He felt the gulf too wide between
them, both in circumstance and character, to be bridged. How could he,
an untitled American, an unknown young gentleman of small fortune,
pretend to the hand of one of the most beautiful, most aristocratic, and
most capricious women in Paris? He smiled to himself as he mentally
compared Adrienne with the simple young beauties of Virginia he had
known--with Miss Molly Crenshawe and Miss Peggy Gary--and he wondered a
little bitterly why he could not have fallen happily in love with some
one of his own countrywomen, whose heart he could have won and kept,
instead of falling a victim to the charms of a dazzling creature quite
beyond his reach. With that clear good sense which was ever one of his
most distinguishing traits, he fully comprehended the difficulties, the
impossibility of a happy ending of his passion, and, having no desire to
play the role of the disconsolate lover, he again determined to see as
little of Adrienne as possible.
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