He was
all for liberty, he imagined. Was he really, after all, a mild
schemer with an ethical outlook? Was he bent on managing and
uplifting people? The idea sickened him, and he felt humiliated.
When he arrived at the Vicarage, he found the Vicar out. Maud was
alone. This was, he confessed to himself with a strange delight,
exactly what he most desired. He would not be paternal or
formative. He would just make friends with his pretty cousin as he
might with a sensible undergraduate. With this stern resolve he
entered the room.
Maud got up hastily from her chair--she was writing in a little
note-book on her knee. "I thought I would just come in and say
good-bye," he said. "I have to go back to Cambridge earlier than I
thought, and I hoped I might just catch you and your father."
"He will be so sorry," said Maud; "he does enjoy meeting you. He
says it gives him so much to think about."
"Oh, well," said Howard, "I hope to be here again next vacation--in
June, that is. I have got to learn my duties here as soon as I can.
I see you are hard at work. Is that the book? How do you get on?
You have promised to send it me, you know, as soon as you have
enough in hand."
"Yes," said Maud, "I will send it you. It has done me good already,
doing this. It is very good of you to have suggested it--and I like
to think it may be of some use."
"I have been with Jack all the afternoon," said Howard, "and I am
afraid he is rather vexed with me.
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