“I shouldn't mind it, I fancy, though it would depend a great deal upon who made fun of me. I suppose that women always laugh at men,—at their clumsiness, their want of tact, the fit of their clothes.”
“I don't know. I should not do that with any one I—”
“You liked? Oh, none of them do!” cried Staniford.
“I was not going to say that,” faltered the girl.
“What were you going to say?”
She waited a moment. “Yes, I was going to say that,” she assented with a sigh of helpless veracity. “What makes you laugh?” she asked, in distress.
“Something I like. I'm different from you: I laugh at what I like; I like your truthfulness,—it's charming.”
“I didn't know that truth need be charming.”
“It had better be, in women, if it's to keep even with the other thing.” Lydia seemed shocked; she made a faint, involuntary motion to withdraw her hand, but he closed his arm upon it. “Don't condemn me for thinking that fibbing is charming. I shouldn't like it at all in you. Should you in me?”
“I shouldn't in any one,” said Lydia.