Alwyn laughed at his mock injured tone.
"I apologize, Villiers! ... I really do! But I felt it would be scarcely civil of me to come down upon you for bed, board, and lodging, without giving you previous notice, and at the same time I wanted to take you by surprise, as I DID. Besides I wasn't sure whether I should find you in town--of course I knew I should be welcome if you were!"
"Rather!" assented Villiers shortly and with affected gruffness.. "If you were sure of nothing else in this world, you might be sure of that!".. He paused squared his shoulders, and put up his eyeglass, through which he scanned his friend with such a persistently scrutinizing air, that Alwyn was somewhat amused.
"What are you staring at me for?" he demanded gayly,--"Am I so bronzed?"
"Well--you ARE rather brown," admitted Villiers slowly ... "But that doesn't surprise me. The fact is, it's very odd and I can't altogether explain it, but somehow I find you changed, . . positively very much changed too!"
"Changed? In appearance, do you mean? How?"
"'Look here upon this picture and on this,'" quoted Villiers dramatically, taking down Alwyn's portrait from the mantleshelf, and mentally comparing it with the smiling original. "No two heads were ever more alike, and yet more distinctly UNlike. Here"--and he tapped the photograph--"you have the appearance of a modern Timon or Orestes.. but now, as you actually ARE, I see more resemblance in your face to THAT"--and he pointed to the serene and splendid bust of the "Apollo"--"than to this 'counterfeit presentment,' of your former self."
Alwyn flushed,--not so much at the implied compliment, as at the words "FORMER SELF." But quickly shaking off his embarrassment, he glanced round at the "Apollo" and lifted his eyebrows incredulously.
"Then all I can say, my dear boy, is, that that eyeglass of yours represents objects to your own view in a classic light which is entirely deceptive, for I fail to trace the faintest similitude between my own features and that of the sunborn Lord of Laurels."
"Oh, YOU may not trace it," said Villiers calmly, "but nevertheless others will. Some people say that no man knows what he really is like, and that even his own reflection in the glass deceives him. Besides, it is not so much the actual contour for the features that impresses one, it is the LOOK,--you have the LOOK of the Greek god, the look of conscious power and inward happiness."
He spoke seriously, thoughtfully,--surveying his friend with a vague feeling of admiration akin to reverence.