“Harley.”
He laughed ruefully, and she asked why. “Harley doesn’t seem a funny name to me,” she said. “I don’t understand your laughing.”
“It’s to keep from crying,” he explained. “My father was dead before I was born and my mother died just after. I was taken over by my grandfather, and he named me for three of Napoleon’s marshals—Berthier Ney Junot Harley. It takes a grandfather to do things like that to you!”
“But Junot wasn’t a marshal,” Elsie said. “He hoped to be, but the Emperor never made him one; Junot was too flighty.”
Mr. Harley stared. “I remember that’s true;—I spoke of three marshals hastily. I should have said two and a general. My grandfather brought me up on ’em, and I still collect First Empire books. But imagine your knowing!”
“You mean you think I don’t look——”
He interrupted earnestly. “I’m afraid it’s too soon for you to let me tell you how I think you look. But you do laugh at my names, don’t you?”
“No; they don’t seem funny to me.”
“Don’t you ever laugh except when things are funny?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I’ve laughed thousands of times when everything was horribly unfunny.”