“No; they only laugh at me.”
She was silent a moment. Then she said:
“What is it in you that makes you enjoy that which the rest of us are afraid of?”
“And that is——”
“Being laughed at. Laughter, you know, is the great world’s cat-o’-nine-tails. We fear it as little boys fear the birch on a winter’s morning at school.”
Eustace smiled uneasily.
“Do you laugh at me?” he asked.
“I have. You surely don’t mind.”
“No,” he said, with an effort. Then: “Are you laughing to-night?”
“No. You have done an absurd thing, of course, but it happens to be becoming. You look—well, pretty—yes, that’s the word—in your wig. Many men are ugly in their own hair. And, after all, what would life be without its absurdities? Probably you are right to enjoy being laughed at.”