“I hope you’ll be an Englishman soon.”
“It is the same with marriage,” said Alvar; “I have never betrothed myself, nor has my grandfather sought to marry me. He said I must see English ladies also. One does not always follow the heart in these matters,” he concluded rather sentimentally.
“No one would ever dream of your following anything else,” said Cherry, beginning gruffly, but half choked with amusement as he spoke.
“No? And you, you have not decided? Ah, you blush, my brother; I am indiscreet.”
“I didn’t blush—at least that’s nothing. Turkey-cock was my nickname at school always,” said Cherry hastily.
“I do not understand,” said Alvar; and after Cherry had explained the nature and character of turkey-cocks, he said, “But I think that was not civil.”
“Civil! It wasn’t meant to be. English boys don’t stand much upon civility. But,” he added, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, “if we are rough, I hope you won’t mind; the boys don’t mean any harm by it. You’ll soon get used to our ways, and—and we’ll do our best to make you feel at home with us.”
A sudden sense of pity for the lonely brother, a stranger in his father’s house, softened Cheriton’s face and voice as he spoke, though he felt himself to be promising a good deal.
Alvar looked at him with the curious, impassive, unembarrassed air that distinguished him. “You are not ‘rough!’” he said! “you are my brother. I am told that here you do not embrace each other. I am an Englishman, I give you my hand.”
Cheriton took the slender, oval-shaped hand, which yet closed on his more angular one, with a firm, vigorous grasp.