A reference to this date was always the signal for a kiss from Sibylla. She rendered the tribute and returned to her chair, sighing desperately. But it was some relief that Mrs. Mumple had finished her parallel, with its list of ideal virtues, and now left Grantley out of the question.
"Why wasn't he the husband for every woman, Mumples?" inquired Jeremy as he lit his pipe. "They're all just alike, you know."
"He liked them good-looking, to start with," she went on; "and I was good-looking." Jeremy had heard this so often that he no longer felt tempted to smile. "But there was more than that. I had tact."
"Oh, come now, Mumples! You had tact? You? I'm--well, I'm----"
"I had tact, Jeremy." She spoke with overpowering solidity. "I was there when he wanted me, and when he didn't want me I wasn't there, Sibylla."
"Didn't he always want you?" Brother and sister put the question simultaneously, but with a quite different intention.
"No, not always, dears.--Is that your foot on my table? Take it off this instant, Jeremy!"
"Quite a few thousand years ago there was no difference between a foot and a hand, Mumples. You needn't be so fussy about it."
Sibylla got up and walked to the window. From it the lights in Grantley's dining-room were visible.
"I haven't seen him for ten years," Mrs. Mumple went on; "and you've known that, my dears, though you've said nothing--no, not when you'd have liked to have something to throw at me. But I never told you why."
Sibylla left the window and came behind Mrs. Mumple, letting her hand rest on the fat shoulder.
"He broke out at me once, and said he couldn't bear it if I came to see him. It upset him so, and the time wouldn't pass by, and he got thinking how long the time was, and what it all meant. Oh, I can't tell you all he said before he was stopped by the--the man who was there. So I promised him I wouldn't go any more, unless he fell ill or wanted me. They said they'd let me know if he asked for me and was entitled to a visit. But word has never come to me, and I've never seen him."
She paused and stitched at her work for a minute or two.
"You must leave men alone sometimes," she said.
Mrs. Mumple looked up at her, but made no answer. Jeremy flung down his book with an impatient air; he resented the approaches of emotion--especially in himself.