“She did not know it till we had met,” said Alvar.
“What awful tyranny!”
“Ah, and she was your only love!” sighed Rupert.
“No,” said Alvar simply, “I have loved others; but she was the most beautiful. But I submitted, and now I forget her!”
“Hm—the truest wisdom,” said Rupert.
Cherry was growing angry. He did not think that Rupert had any business to make fun of Alvar, and he was in a rage with Alvar for making himself ridiculous. That Alvar should tell a true love-tale with sentimental satisfaction to an admiring audience, or sigh over a flirtation which ought to have been a good joke, was equally distasteful to him. He burst out suddenly, with all his Lester bluntness, and in a tone which Alvar had hitherto heard only from Jack,—
“If you fellows are not all tired of talking such intolerable nonsense, I am. It’s too bad of you,” with a sharp look at Rupert. “I don’t see that it’s any affair of ours.”
“You’re not sympathetic,” said Rupert, as he moved away; for he was quite familiar enough with his cousins for such giving and taking.