When he proposed to Elspeth that they should ask Gemmell to go fishing with them on the morrow ("He has been overworked of late and it would do him good") he wanted to add, in a careless voice, "We might invite Grizel also," but could not; his lips suddenly went dry.

And when Elspeth said the words that were so difficult to him, he wondered, "Did she say that because she knew I wished it ?" But he decided that she did not, for she was evidently looking forward to to-morrow, and he knew she would be shuddering if she thought her Tommy was slipping.
"I am so glad it was she who asked me," Grizel said to him when he told her.

"Don't you see what it means?
It means that she wants to get you out of the way! You are not everything to her now as you used to be.

Are you glad, glad ?" "If I could believe it!" Tommy said.
"What else could make her want to be alone with him ?" Nothing else could have made Grizel want to be alone with him, and she must always judge others by herself.

But Tommy knew that Elspeth was different, and that a girl with some of himself in her might want to be alone with a man who admired her without wanting to marry him..