"
He took her back to the lodgings where they were staying. She shook
hands with him, smiled faintly, almost tearfully, and went in
without a word. Howard went back in a very agitated frame of mind.
He did not understand what was in the girl's mind at all. She was
different, utterly different. Some new current of thought had
passed through her mind. He fancied that the girl, after her
secluded life, with so many richly perceptive faculties half
starved, had awakened almost suddenly to a sense of the crowded
energies and joys of life, that youth and delight had quickened in
her; that she foresaw new relations, and guessed at wonderful
secrets. But it troubled him to think that she had not seemed to
wish to revive their former little intimacy; she had seemed half
unconscious of his presence, and all alive with new pleasures and
curiosities. The marvellous veil of sex appeared to have fallen
between them. He had made friends with her, as he would have made
friends with some ingenuous boy; and now something wholly new,
mysterious, and aloof had intervened.
The rest of the visit was uneventful enough. Maud was different--
that was plain--not less delightful, indeed even more so, in her
baffling freshness; but Howard felt removed from her, shut out from
her mind, kept at arm's length, even superseded.
The luncheon with the Master as guest was a success. He was an old
bachelor clergyman, white-haired, dainty, courteous, with the
complexion of a child.
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