“You look tired,” said Maud.  “I don’t know what it is, but it seems as if everything had gone wrong since we came to Cambridge.  Do tell me what it all is—­you can trust me.  I have been afraid I have vexed you somehow, and I had hoped we were going to be friends.”  She leaned her head on her hand, and looked at him.  She looked so troubled and so frail, that Howard’s heart smote him—­he must make an effort; he must not cloud the child’s mind; he must just take what she could give him, and not hamper her in any way.  The one thing left him was a miserable courtesy, on which he must somehow depend.  He forced a sort of smile, and began to talk—­his own voice audible to him, strained and ugly, like the voice of some querulous ghost.

“Ah,” he said, “as one gets older, one can’t always command one’s moods.  Vexed?  Of course, I am not vexed—­what put that into your head?  It’s this—­I can tell you so much!  It seems to me that I have been drawn aside out of my old, easy, serene life, into a new sort of life here—­and I am not equal to it.  I had got so used, I suppose, to picking up other lives, that I thought I could do the same here—­and I seem to have taken on more than I could manage.  I forgot, I think, that I was getting older, that I had left youth behind.  I made the mistake of thinking I could play a new role—­and I cannot.  I am tired—­yes, I am deadly tired; and I feel now as if I wanted to get out of it all, and just leave things to work themselves out.  I have meddled, and I am being punished for meddling.  I have been playing with fire, and I have been burnt.  I had thought of a new sort of life.  Don’t you remember,” he added with a smile, “the monkey in Buckland’s book, who got into the kettle on the hob, and whenever he tried to leave it, found it so cold outside, that he dared not venture out—­and he was nearly boiled alive!”

“No, I don’t understand,” said Maud, with so sudden an air of sorrow and unhappiness that Howard could hardly refrain from taking her into his arms like a tired child and comforting her.  “I don’t understand at all.  You came here, and you fitted in at once, seemed to understand everyone and everything, and gave us all a lift.  It is miserable—­that you should have brought so much happiness to us, and then have tired of it all.  I don’t understand it in the least.  Something must have happened to distress you—­it can’t all go to pieces like this!”

“Oh,” said Howard, “I interfered.  It is my accursed trick of playing with people, wanting to be liked, wanting to make a difference.  How can I explain? . . .  Well, I must tell you.  You must forgive me somehow!  I tried—­don’t look at me while I say it—­ I have tried to interfere with you.  I tried to make a friend of you; and then when you came to Cambridge, I saw I had claimed too much; that your place was not with such as myself—­the old, stupid, battered generation, fit for nothing but worrying along.  I saw you were young, and needed youth about you.  God forgive me for my selfish plans.  I wanted to keep your friendship for myself, and when I saw you were attracted elsewhere, I was jealous—­horribly, vilely jealous.  But I have the grace to despise myself for it, and I won’t hamper you in any way.  You must just give me what you can, and I will be thankful.”