As a boy, he had maddened her most in his grandest moments.
I can think of no other excuse for her.
She would not accept it as an excuse for herself now.

What she saw with scorn was that she was always suspecting the worst of Tommy.
Very probably there was not a thought in the book that had been put in with his old complacent waggle of the head.

"Oh, am I not a wonder!" he used to cry, when he did anything big; but that was no reason why she should suspect him of being conceited still.

Very probably he really and truly felt what he wrote--felt it not only at the time, but also next morning.

In his boyhood Mr.Cathro had christened him Sentimental Tommy; but he was a man now, and surely the sentimentalities in which he had dressed himself were flung aside for ever, like old suits of clothes.