If there is a
thing I reverence it is intellect, especially when it is framed in
modesty and courtesy."
Howard went with him to his lodgings, and just went in to say good-
bye to Maud. Jack had been dining with her, but he was gone. He and
Guthrie were going to the station to give them a send-off. "A
charming young 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.
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