Tommy had pooh-poohed him from the first, to Grizel's unutterable woe.
"Have you not one word of praise for such a splendid deed ?" she had asked in despair.
"I see nothing splendid about it," he replied coldly.
"I advise you in your own interests not to talk in that way to others," she said.

"Don't you see what they will say ?" "I can't help that," answered Tommy the just.

"If they ask my opinion, I must give them the truth.

I thought you were fond of the truth, Grizel." To that she could only wring her hands and say nothing; but it had never struck her that the truth could be so bitter.
And now he was giving his opinion at Mrs.McLean's party, and they were all against him, except, in a measure, Elspeth's bachelor, who said cheerily, "We should all have done it if we had been in Captain Ure's place; I would have done it myself, Miss Elspeth, though not fond of the water." He addressed all single ladies by their Christian name with a Miss in front of it.

This is the mark of the confirmed bachelor, and comes upon him at one-and-twenty.
"I could not have done it," Grizel replied decisively, though she was much the bravest person present, and he explained that he meant the men only.