"But of what am I vain, Grizel?
Is it my book ?" "No," she answered, "not about your book, but about meaner things.
What else could have made you dislocate your ankle rather than admit that you had been rather silly ?" Now "silly" is no word to apply to a gentleman, and, despite his forgiving nature, Tommy was a little disappointed in Grizel.
"I suppose it was a silly thing to do," he said, with just a touch of stiffness.
"It was an ignoble thing," said she, sadly.
"I see.

And I myself am the meaner thing than the book, am I ?" "Are you not ?" she asked, so eagerly that he laughed again.
"It is the first compliment you have paid my book," he pointed out.
"I like the book very much," she answered gravely.

"No one can be more proud of your fame than I.You are hurting me very much by pretending to think that it is a pleasure to me to find fault with you." There was no getting past the honesty of her, and he was touched by it.
Besides, she did admire him, and that, after all, is the great thing.
"Then why say such things, Grizel ?" he replied good-naturedly.
"But if they are true ?" "Still let us avoid them," said he; and at that she was most distressed.
"It is so like what you used to say when you were a boy!" she cried.
"You are so anxious to have me grow up," he replied, with proper dolefulness.

"If you like the book, Grizel, you must have patience with the kind of thing that produced it.

That night in the Den, when I won your scorn, I was in the preliminary stages of composition.