"Not just yet, please. Oh yes, I hope it'll be a good day for her! And it'll be a great day for your poor old Mumples, won't it? I hope Mr. Mumple will behave nicely."
"Oh, so do I with my whole heart!" cried Sibylla.
"I'm taking a very sympathetic interest in the Mumples also, Sibylla. Likewise in Dora and her young man, and Jeremy and his young woman. Oh, and in the Raymores and Charley! Anybody else?"
Sibylla looked at him reprovingly, but a smile would tremble about the corners of her mouth.
"You see, I've been thinking over what you said the other day," Grantley went on with placid gravity, "and I've made up my mind to come and tell you whenever I do a decent thing or have an honest emotion. I shan't like saying it at all, but you'll like hearing it awfully."
"Some people would be serious about it, considering—well, considering everything," Sibylla remarked, turning her face away.
"Yes, but then they wouldn't see you smile—and you've an adorable smile; and they wouldn't see the flash in your eyes—and you've such wonderful eyes, Sibylla."
He delivered these statements with a happy simplicity.
"You're not imposing on me," she said. "I know you mean it." Her voice trembled just a little. "And perhaps that's the best way to tell me."
"On the other hand, I shall become a persistent and accomplished hypocrite. You'll never know how I grind the faces of the poor at the bank, nor my inmost thoughts when Frank drops half his food on my best waistcoat."