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He took the pipe from his mouth, and the expression of his eyes became fixed, while his cheeks reddened slowly and deeply. In putting himself in Maud’s place, he was realizing for the first time how strong must have been the feeling which had nerved her to such a step. His heart began to beat rather thickly. There was something decidedly intoxicating in knowing that one was regarded in such a way by a nice girl, even if it were impossible, as it certainly was in this case, to reciprocate the feeling. He continued to put himself mentally in Maud’s place. No doubt she was also at that moment sitting alone in her chamber, thinking the matter over as he was. She was not laughing, however, that was pretty certain; and it required no clairvoyant’s gift for him to be sensible that her chief concern must be as to what he might be at that moment thinking about her. And how had he been thinking about her?

As this question came up to his mind, he saw himself for a moment through Maud’s eyes, sitting there smoking, chuckling, mowing like an idiot before the glass because, forsooth, a girl had put herself at his mercy on the mistaken supposition that he was a gentleman. As he saw his conduct in this new light, he had such an access of self-contempt that, had it been physically convenient, it would have been a relief to kick himself. What touching faith she had shown in his ability to take a generous, high-minded view of what she had done, and here he had been guffawing over it like a corner loafer. He would not, for anything in the world, have her know how he had behaved. And she should not. She should never know that he was less a gentleman than she believed him.

She had told him, to be sure, that he owed her nothing because she loved him; but it had just struck him that he owed her at least, on that account, a more solicitous respect and consideration than any one else had the right to expect from him.

There were no precedents to guide him, no rules of etiquette prescribing the proper thing for a young man to do under such circumstances as these. It was a new problem he had to work out, directed only by such generous and manly instincts as he might have. Plainly the first thing, and in fact the only thing that he could do for her, seeing that he really could not return her affection, was to show her that she had not forfeited his esteem.

At first he thought of writing her a note and assuring her, in a few gracefully turned sentences, of his high respect in spite of what she had done. But somehow the gracefully turned sentences did not occur to his mind when he took up his pen, and it did occur to him that to write persons that you still respect them is equivalent to intimating that their conduct justly might have forfeited your respect. Nor would it be at all easier to give such an assurance by word of mouth. In fact, quite the reverse. The meaning to be conveyed was too delicate for words. Only the unspoken language of his manner and bearing could express it without offense. It might, however, be some time before chance brought them together in society, even if she did not, for a while at least, purposely avoid him. Meantime, uncertain how her extraordinary action had impressed him, how was she likely to enjoy her thoughts?

In the generous spirit bred of his new contrition, it seemed to him a brutal thing to leave her weeks or even days in such a condition of mind as must be hers. Inaction on his part was all that was required to make her position intolerable. Inaction was not therefore permissible to him. It was a matter in which he must take the initiative, and there seemed to be just one thing he could do which would at all answer the purpose. A brief formal call, with the conversation strictly limited to the weather and similarly safe subjects, would make it possible for them to meet thereafter in society without too acute embarrassment. Had he the pluck for this, the nerve to carry it through? That was the only question. There was no doubt as to what he ought to do. It would be an awkward call, to put it mildly. It would be skating on terribly thin ice –a little thinner, perhaps, than a man ever skated on before.