He knew Elspeth so well that he could tell exactly how these poor young men should approach her.  As an artist as well as a brother, he frowned when they blundered.  He would have liked to be the medium through which they talked, so that he could give looks and words their proper force.  He had thought it all out so thoroughly for Elspeth’s benefit that in an hour he could have drawn out a complete guide for her admirers.

“At the first meeting look at her wistfully when she does not see you.  She will see you.”  It might have been Rule One.

Rule Two:  “Don’t talk so glibly.”  How often that was what the poker meant!

Being herself a timid creature, Elspeth showed best among the timid, because her sympathetic heart immediately desired to put them at their ease.  The more glibly they could talk, the less, she knew, were they impressed by her.  Even a little boorishness was more complimentary than chatter.  Sometimes when she played on the piano which Tommy had hired for her, the visitor was so shy that he could not even mutter “Thank you” to his hat; yet she might play to him again, and not to the gallant who remarked briskly:  “How very charming!  What is that called?”

To talk disparagingly of other women is so common a way among men of penetrating into the favour of one that, of course, some tried it with Elspeth.  Tommy could not excuse such blundering, for they were making her despise them.  He got them out of the house, and then he and she had a long talk, not about them, but about men and women in general, from which she gathered once again that there was nobody like Tommy.

When they bade each other good-night, she would say to him:  “I think you are the one perfect gentleman in the world.”

Or he might say:  “You expect so much of men, Elspeth.”

To which her reply:  “You have taught me to do it, and now I expect others to be like you.”  Sometimes she would even say:  “When I see you so fond of me, and taking such care of me, I am ashamed.  You think me so much better than I am.  You consider me so pure and good, while I know that I am often mean, and even have wicked thoughts.  It makes me ashamed, but so proud of you, for I see that you are judging me by yourself.”

And then this Tommy would put the gas out softly and go to his own room, and, let us hope, blush a little.

One stripling had proposed to Elspeth, and on her agitatedly declining him, had flung out of the room in a pet.  It spoiled all her after-thoughts on the subject, and so roused her brother’s indignation with the fellow.  If the great baby had only left all the arrangements to Tommy, he could so easily have made that final scene one which Elspeth would remember with gratification for the remainder of her days; for, of course, pride in the offer could not be great unless she retained her respect for the man who made it.  From the tremulous proposal and the manly acceptance of his fate to his dignified exit ("Don’t grieve for me, Miss Sandys; you never gave me the least encouragement, and to have loved you will always make me a better man"), even to a touching way of closing the door with one long, last, lingering look, Tommy could have fitted him like a tailor.