"Sir Guy," interrupts Lilian again, throwing at him a paper pellet she has been preparing for the last two minutes, with sure and certain aim, "didn't you hear me desire you not to look like that?"
Sir Guy laughs, and subsides into a chair. Miss Beauchamp shrugs her shapely shoulders and indulges in a smile suggestive of pity.
"I begin to feel outrageously jealous of this unknown Taffy," says Cyril. "I never knew you in such good spirits before. Do you always laugh when you are happy?"
"'Much laughter covers many tears,'" returns Lilian, gayly. "Yes, I am very happy,—so happy that I think a little would make me cry."
"Oh, don't," says Cyril, entreatingly; "if you begin I'm safe to follow suit, and weeping violently always makes me ill."
"I can readily believe it," says Miss Chesney. "Your expression is unmistakably doleful, O knight of the rueful countenance!"
"And his manner is so dejected," remarks his mother, smiling. "Have you not noticed how silent he always is? One might easily imagine him the victim of an unhappy love tale."
"If you say much more," says Mr. Chetwoode, "like Keats, I shall 'die of a review.' I feel much offended. It has been the dream of my life up to this that society in general regarded me as a gay and brilliant personage, one fitted to shine in any sphere, concentrating (as I hoped I did) rank, beauty, and fashion in my own body."
"Did you hope all that?" asks Lilian, with soft impertinence.
"'A modest hope, but modesty's my forte,'" returns he, mildly. "No, Miss Chesney, I won't be told I am conceited. This is a case in which we 'all do it;' every one in this life thinks himself better than he is."