"Not me!" she scorned. "Cry? Not me! Not for no mountain like her!"
"And what," he asked, "did Lord Wychester do?"
"'Back to the side-show, Duchess!' says Lord Wychester. 'You're too fat for decent company. My friend the Dook,' says he, 'may be partial to fat ladies and ten-cent freaks; but my taste runs to slim blondes.'"
No amusement was excited by Lord Wychester's second sally. In the world she knew, it would have provoked a shout of laughter. The boy's gravity disquieted her.
"Did you laugh?" he asked.
"Everybody," she answered, pitifully, "give her the laugh."
He sighed—somewhat wistfully. "I wish," he said, "that you hadn't."
"Why not!" she wondered, in genuine surprise.
"I don't know."
"Why, dear!" she exclaimed, a note of alarm in her voice. "It isn't bad manners! Anyhow," she qualified, quick to catch her cue, "I didn't laugh much. I hardly laughed at all. I don't believe I did laugh."