n almost
physical need of communication made itself felt in him; he spoke with a
volubility that was foreign to him, began his sentences with a
confidential "You see," and said things at which he himself was amazed.
He related impressions, not facts, and impressions which, until now, he
had not been conscious of receiving; he told unguardedly of his plans
and ambitions, and even went back and touched on his home-life,
dwelling with considerable bitterness on the scant sympathy he had
received.

His companion looked at him curiously. She had expected a casual answer
to her casual words, a surface frankness, such as she herself had
shown, and, at first, she felt sceptical towards this unbidden
confidence: she did not care for people who gave themselves away at a
word; either they were naive to foolishness or inordinately vain. But
having listened for some time to his outpourings, she began to feel
reassured; and soon she understood that he was talking thus at random,
merely because he was lonely and bottled-up. Before he had finished,
she was even a little gratified by his openness, and on his confiding
to her what Schwarz had said to him, she smiled indulgently.

"Perhaps I took it to mean more than it actually did," said Maurice
apologetically. "But anyhow it was cheering to hear it. You see, I must
prove to the people at home that I was right and they were wrong.
Failure was preached at me on every side. I was the only soul to
believe in myself."

"And you really disliked teaching so?"

"Hated it with all my heart."

She frankly examined him. He had a pale, longish face, with thin lips,
which might indicate either narrow prejudice or a fanatic tenacity.
When he grew animated, he had a habit of opening his eyes very wide,
and of staring straight before him. At such moments, too, he tossed
back his head, with the impatient movements of a young horse. His hands
and feet were good, his clothes of a provincial cut. Her fingers itched
to retie the bow of his cravat for him, to pull him here and there into
shape. Altogether, he made the impression upon her of being a very
young man: when he coloured, or otherwise grew embarrassed, under her
steady gaze, she mentally put him down for less than twenty. But he had
good manners; he allowed her to pass before him, where the way grew
narrow; walked on the outside of the path; made haste to draw back an
obstreperous branch; and not one of these trifling conventionalities
was