"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 lost on Madeleine Wade.

They had turned their steps homewards, and were drawing near the edge
of the wood, when, through the tree-trunks, which here were bare and
far apart, they saw two people walking arm in arm; and on turning a
corner found the couple coming straight towards them, on the same path
as themselves. In the full flush of his talk, Maurice Guest did not at
first grasp what was about to happen. He had ended the sentence he was
at, and begun another, before the truth broke on him. Then he
stuttered, lost the thread of his thought, was abruptly silent; and
what he had been going to say, and what, a moment before, had seemed
of the utmost importance, was never said. His companion did not seem