Howard, why DID you do that?"
"Oh, don't ask me, darling," he said. "I thought--I thought--I
don't know what I did think; but I somehow felt it would be like
putting a bird that had sate to sing to me into a cage, if I tried
to capture you; and yet I felt it was my only chance. I felt so
old. Why you must remember that I was a grown-up man and at work,
when you were in long clothes. And think of the mercy of this--if I
had come here, as I ought to have done, and had known you as a
little girl, you would have become a sort of niece to me, and all
this could never have happened--it would all have been different."
"Well, we won't think of THAT," said Maud decisively. "I was rather
a horrid little girl, and I am glad you didn't see me in that
stage!"
One day he found her a little sad, and she confessed to having had
a melancholy dream. "It was a big place, like a square in a town,
full of people," she said. "You came down some steps, looking
unhappy, and went about as if you were looking for me; and I could
not attract your attention, or get near you; once you passed quite
close to me and our eyes met, and I saw you did not recognise me,
but passed on."
Howard laughed. "Why, child," he said, "I can't see anyone else but
you when we are in the same room together--my faculty of
observation has deserted me. I see every movement you make, I feel
every thought you think; you have bewitched me! Your face comes
between me and my work; you will quite ruin my career.
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