Tommy winced.  “I remember what Mr. Cathro called me,” he said, with surprising hauteur for such a good-natured man.  “But he does not call me that now.  No one calls me that now, except you, Grizel.”

“What does that matter,” she replied distressfully, “if it is true?  In the definition of sentimentality in the dictionary—­”

He rose indignantly.  “You have been looking me up in the dictionary, have you, Grizel?”

“Yes, the night you told me you had hurt your ankle intentionally.”

He laughed, without mirth now.  “I thought you had put that down to vanity.”

“I think,” she said, “it was vanity that gave you the courage to do it.”  And he liked one word in this remark.

“Then you do give me credit for a little courage?”

“I think you could do the most courageous things,” she told him, “so long as there was no real reason why you should do them.”

It was a shot that rang the bell.  Oh, our Tommy heard it ringing.  But, to do him justice, he bore no malice; he was proud, rather, of Grizel’s marksmanship.  “At least,” he said meekly, “it was courageous of me to tell you the truth in the end?” But, to his surprise, she shook her head.

“No,” she replied; “it was sweet of you.  You did it impulsively, because you were sorry for me, and I think it was sweet.  But impulse is not courage.”

So now Tommy knew all about it.  His plain-spoken critic had been examining him with a candle, and had paid particular attention to his defects; but against them she set the fact that he had done something chivalrous for her, and it held her heart, though the others were in possession of the head.  “How like a woman!” he thought, with a pleased smile.  He knew them!

Still he was chagrined that she made so little of his courage, and it was to stab her that he said, with subdued bitterness:  “I always had a suspicion that I was that sort of person, and it is pleasant to have it pointed out by one’s oldest friend.  No one will ever accuse you of want of courage, Grizel.”

She was looking straight at him, and her eyes did not drop, but they looked still more wistful.  Tommy did not understand the courage that made her say what she had said, but he knew he was hurting her; he knew that if she was too plain-spoken it was out of loyalty, and that to wound Grizel because she had to speak her mind was a shame—­yes, he always knew that.

But he could do it; he could even go on:  “And it is satisfactory that you have thought me out so thoroughly, because you will not need to think me out any more.  You know me now, Grizel, and can have no more fear of me.”

“When was I ever afraid of you?” she demanded.  She was looking at him suspiciously now.

“Never as a girl?” he asked.  It jumped out of him.  He was sorry as soon as he had said it.

There was a long pause.  “So you remembered it all the time,” she said quietly.  “You have been making pretence—­again!” He asked her to forgive him, and she nodded her head at once.  “But why did you pretend to have forgotten?”