"
"I believe I _did_ discern a sort of royal command in your eye,"
assented Susie, feeling suddenly at ease with him. He was evidently a
mere man, even though he were a prince.
"Yes," he continued, "I felt that I owed you and your sister a more
complete apology than it was possible for me to make yesterday without
impertinence. You see I am unaccompanied to-day."
"Poor Jax!" laughed Susie.
"I suspect," the Prince continued, "that I somehow offended you when I
offered you the dog."
"Oh, you perceived it, did you?" and she flashed an ironic glance upon
him.
"Yes--though I could not in the least guess in what the offence
consisted."
"My dear sir," said Sue, tartly, "American girls are not in the habit of
accepting gifts from utter strangers."
"Not even from--from--"
He stopped, at a loss for a word which would express his meaning without
absurdity.
"No, not even from Royal Highnesses," she added, interpreting his
thought. "Besides, you know, in America we haven't any."
The Prince walked on in silence for a moment, his brow knit in
meditation.
"Your last sentence explains it," he said, at last. "You have in
America no class whose prerogative it is to bestow gifts, and, in
consequence, you do not accept them as a matter of course. With us a
gift is a conventional thing, like shaking hands.
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