"Those things aren't funny to me any more," he declared, scowling.
"But to be called beautiful—"
"No man is beautiful," he returned savagely. "No man wants to be called that. It's my eye-glasses, I suppose." He took them off and played with them. "Maybe they do make me look dudish. I'd wear spectacles if they didn't cut my ears. Or I might go without and come to a sudden end by walking over some lonely precipice." He expected her to remonstrate, but she said:
"Well, I'll promise not to tell the new visitors about you;" as if, of course, this was what he had been leading up to.
"I don't care anything about them."
"I'm sorry. I had rather counted on you, as the only person here who has met them,—and an old friend of the family."
He stood up again.
"But I don't want to be your friend—"
"Oh!" She seized and fortified all the strategic positions. "This is certainly surprising in you, Warrick Raridan, after all the years I've known you. I didn't expect to be renounced so early." He stood looking at her quizzically, and too fixedly for her comfort.
"Tragedy doesn't become the Juniata type of beauty. You'd better sit down." He had been pacing the floor, but now threw himself into a chair.