fellow, Guthrie!" said Mr. Sandys. "He has been constantly with us, and
it is very pleasant to find that Jack has such an excellent friend. His
father is, I believe, a man of wealth and influence? You would hardly
have guessed it! That a young man of that sort should have given up so
much time to entertaining a country parson and his daughter is really
very gratifying--a sign of the growing humanity of the youth of
England. I fear we should not have been so tolerant at dear old
Pembroke. I like your young men, Howard. They are unduly careless, I
think, about dress; but in courtesy and kindness, irreproachable!"

Howard only had a few words with Maud, of a very commonplace kind. She
had enjoyed herself very much, and it was good of him to have given up
so much time to them. She seemed to him reserved and preoccupied, and
he could not do anything to restore the old sense of friendship. He was
tired himself; it had been a week of great strain. Far from getting any
nearer to Maud, he felt that he had drifted away from her, and that
some intangible partition kept them apart. The visit, he felt, had been
a mistake from beginning to end.

XVII

SELF-SUPPRESSION

As soon as the term was over, Howard went down to Windlow. He was in a
very unhappy frame of mind. He could not capitulate; but the more that
he thought, the more that he tried to analyse his feelings, the more
complex they became. It really seemed to him at times as if two
perfectly distinct people were arguing within him. He was afraid of
love; his aim had always been to simplify his life as far as possible,
and to live in a serene and cheerful spirit, for the day and in the
day. His work, his relations with colleagues and pupils, had all amused
and interested him; he had cared for people, he had many friends; but
it was all a cool, temperate, unimpassioned kind of caring. People had
drifted in and out of his life; with his frank and easy manner, his
excellent memory for the characteristics and the circumstances of
others, it had been easy for him to pick up a relationship where he had
laid it down; but it was all a very untroubled business, and no one had
ever really entered into his life; he did not like dropping people, and
took some trouble by means of letters to keep up communication with his
old pupils; but his friendships had never reached the point at which
the loss of a friend would have been a severe blow. He felt that he was
always given credi