The truth is that we have been
squabbling over you."

"Well, Jack," said Howard, smiling, "it's very good of you to say this.
I can't quite accept it, but I am very grateful. There WAS some truth
in what you said--but it wasn't quite the whole truth; and anyhow you
and I won't squabble--I shouldn't like that!"

Jack nodded and smiled, and they went on to talk of other things; but
Howard was pleased to see that the boy hung about him, determined to
make up for his temper, looked after his luggage, saw him into the
train, and waved him a very ingenuous farewell, with a pretence of
tears.

The journey passed in a listless dream for Howard, but everything faded
before the thought of Maud. What could he do to make up for his
brutality? He could not see his way clear. He had a sense that it was
unfair to claim her affection, to sentimentalise; and he thought that
he had been doubly wrong--wrong in engaging her interest so quickly,
wrong in playing on her unhappiness just for his own enjoyment, and
doubly wrong in trying to disengage their relation so roughly. It was a
mean business; and yet though he did not want to hold her, he could not
bear to let her go.

As he came near Cambridge and in sight of the familiar landscape, the
wide fields, the low lines of far-off wolds, he was surprised to find
that instead of being depressed, a sense of comfort stole over him, and
a feeling of repose. He had crammed too many impressions and emotions
into his visit; and now he was going back to well-known and peaceful
activities. The sight of his rooms pleased him, and the foregathering
with the three or four of his colleagues was a great relief. Mr.
Redmayne was incisive and dogmatic, but evidently pleased to see him
back. He had not been away, and professed that holidays and change of
scene were distracting and exhausting. "It takes me six weeks to
recover from a holiday," he said. He had had an old friend to stay with
him, a country parson, and he had apparently spent his time in
elaborate manoeuvres to see as little of his guest as possible. "A
worthy man, but tedious," he said, "wonderfully well preserved--in
body, that is; his mind has entirely gone to pieces; he has got some
dismal notions in his head about the condition of the agricultural
poor; he thinks they want uplifting! Now I am all for the due
subordination of classes. The poor are there, if I may speak plainly,
to breed--that is their first duty; and their only other du