"
"I don't see what to do," said Maud, looking rather troubled. "I
ought to have seen that you hated it."
"No, it's my own stupid fault," said Howard. "You are right, and I
am wrong. I see it is my business at present to go about like a
dancing bear, and I'll dance, I'll dance! It's priggish to think
about wasting one's sweetness. What I really feel is this. 'Here's
an hour,' I say, 'when I might have had Maud all to myself, and she
and I have been talking about the weather to a pack of unoccupied
females.'"
"Something comes of it," said Maud. "I don't know what it is, but
it's a kind of chain. I don't think it matters much what they talk
about, but there is a sort of kindness about it which I like--
something which lies behind ideas. These people don't say anything,
but they think something into one--it's alive, and it moves."
"Oh, yes," said Howard, "it's alive, no doubt. It would amuse me a
good deal to see these people at home, if I could just be hidden in
the curtains, and hear what they really talked about, and what they
really felt. It's when they have their armour on that they bore me.
It is not a pretty armour, and they don't wear it well; they don't
fight in it--they only wear it that you mayn't touch them. If they
would give themselves away and talk like Miss Bates, I could stand
it."
"Well," said Maud, "I am going to say something rather bold. It
comes, I think, of living at Cambridge with clever people, and
having real things to talk about, that makes your difficulty.
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