That was when Tommy was talking beautifully to her about her dear doctor.

He would have done wisely to avoid this subject; but he was so notoriously good at condolences that he had to say it.

He had thought it out, you may remember, a year ago, but hesitated to post it; and since then it had lain heavily within him, as if it knew it was a good thing and pined to be up and strutting.
He said it with emotion; evidently Dr.McQueen had been very dear to him, and any other girl would have been touched; but Grizel stiffened, and when he had finished, this is what she said, quite snappily: "He never liked you." Tommy was taken aback, but replied, with gentle dignity, "Do you think, Grizel, I would let that make any difference in my estimate of him ?" "But you never liked him," said she; and now that he thought of it, this was true also.

It was useless to say anything about the artistic instinct to her; she did not know what it was, and would have had plain words for it as soon as he told her.

Please to picture Tommy picking up his beautiful speech and ramming it back into his pocket as if it were a rejected manuscript.
"I am sorry you should think so meanly of me, Grizel," he said with manly forbearance, and when she thought it all out carefully that night she decided that she had been hasty.