rt, but compelled to an incessant watchfulness, a despairing
strain, in watching and guiding his refractory, his spiteful steeds.
The control he had never forfeited wholly. Perhaps his sensitiveness,
his solitariness, his fastidiousness, had tended to keep his sensuous
nature within bounds.

But he went through strange moods, when he could almost wish that he
had not been so cautious, so prudent; he felt that he had travelled
through life as a spectator merely; and the element of passionate
feeling, of confessed devotion, of uncalculating love, had passed him
by. He used, in these moods, to wish that he had some soul-stirring
experience to look back upon, some passionate affection, some
overpowering emotion, which might have constrained him to open and
unashamed utterance. How had he missed, he used to ask himself, the
experience of a deep and whole-hearted love? There was nothing easier
in the world than to establish a certain intimacy of relation. He had,
he was aware, a friendly air and a certain simple charm of manner,
which made it an easy thing for him to say what was in his mind. A
single interview was often enough for him to make a friendship. He had
an acute superficial sensibility, which made it very easy for him to
divine another's tastes and emotions; and his own emotional
experiences, his freedom of expression, gave him the power of
interpreting and entering into the feelings of others. But his
experience was always the same. He could clasp hands with another
soul, he could step pleasantly and congenially through the ante-rooms
and corridors of friendship; but as soon as the great door that led to
the inner rooms of the house came in sight, a certain coldness, a
shamefacedness held him back; the hand was dropped, the expected word
unspoken.

Thus Hugh found himself with a great number of close friends, and
without a single intimate one. He had never bared his heart to
another, he had never seen another heart bare before his eyes. He had
never let himself go. Thus he was a master, so to speak, of the
emotional elements up to a certain point; but he had never made a
surrender of himself, and had always with a certain coldness checked
any signs of a surrender in others. A close friendship had once been
abruptly ended by the bestowal of certain deep confidences by his
friend, sad and touching confidences. This incident had drawn a veil
between him and his friend, a veil that he could not withdra