He came
to the conclusion eventually that Maud had told her about the
beginnings of their friendship; that his aunt supposed that he had
tried to win Maud's confidence, as he would have made friends with
one of his young men; and that she imagined that he had found that
Maud's feeling for him had developed in rather too confidential a
line, as for a father-confessor. He thought that Mrs. Graves had
seen that Maud had been disposed to adopt him as a kind of ethical
director, and had thought that he had been bored at finding a
girl's friendship so much more exacting than the friendship of a
young man; and that she had been exhorting him to be more brotherly
and simple in his relations with Maud, and to help her to the best
of his ability. He imagined that Maud had told Mrs. Graves that he
had been advising her, and that she had perhaps since told her of
his chilly reception of her later confidences. That was the
situation he had created; and he felt with what utter clumsiness he
had handled it. His aunt, no doubt, thought that he had been
disturbed at finding how much more emotional a girl's dependence
upon an older man was than he had expected. But he felt that when
he could tell her the whole story, she would see that he could not
have acted otherwise. He had been so thrown off his balance by
finding how deeply he cared for Maud, that he had been simply
unable to respond to her advances. He ought to have had more
control of himself.
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