though.

"And we shall actually see a young man," she said finally, "in the act of
deciding his own destiny!"

He laughed for pleasure in her persiflage. "Yes; only don't give me away.
Nobody else knows it."

"Oh no, indeed. Too much flattered, Mr. Mavering. Shall you let me know
when you've decided? I shall be dying to know, and I shall be too
high-minded to ask."

It was not then too late to adapt 'Pinafore' to any exigency of life, and
Mavering said, "You will learn from the expression of my eyes."




XIII.

The witnesses of Mavering's successful efforts to make everybody like him
were interested in his differentiation of the attentions he offered every
age and sex from those he paid Alice. But while they all agreed that
there never was a sweeter fellow, they would have been puzzled to say in
just what this difference consisted, and much as they liked him, the
ladies of her cult were not quite satisfied with him till they decided
that it was marked by an anxiety, a timidity, which was perfectly
fascinating in a man so far from bashfulness as he. That is, he did nice
things for others without asking; but with her there was always an
explicit pause, and an implicit prayer and permission, first. Upon this