He threw the wet blanket of doubt over warm young enthusiasms because his mind worked with a certain deliberateness which did not at once permit him to see the practicability of the scheme.

Later he would approve.

But by that time, probably, the wet blanket had effectually extinguished the glow.
You cannot always savor your pleasures cold.
So after the disgrace of his father, Harry Thorpe did a great deal of thinking and planning which he kept carefully to himself.

He considered in turn the different occupations to which he could turn his hand, and negatived them one by one.

Few business firms would care to employ the son of as shrewd an embezzler as Henry Thorpe.