Maurice had never been the type to experiment, not until he met Clive. But Clive was not real love. Clive was chaste, and innocent. A passing fling of brief hand holding and Clive’s shame of sodomy.

Maurice let go. Clive Durham abandoned him to marry a woman. Maurice refused to follow that same path.

Somehow, he found his way out of that pit of his life. He escaped the claws of societal pressure, running away for— for what, exactly?

Maurice was not sure.

He wasn’t even sure with Mr Scudder. Mr Scudder: the under-gamekeeper on Clive Durham’s estate. A servant boy.

They both held bottled up feelings, hidden and kept silent, but not ashamed. A million times, he had to remind himself to stop calling Mr Scudder by his first name. A million times, he had to remind him he was solely a man, not even a friend.

It boiled over during a an argument, spurring from Maurice with Mr Scudder grabbing his arm. They’d already made love, once before. Mr Scudder had climbed through his window, and came into his bed, and kissed him, and Maurice had asked him too. Willed him to, even.

Physical love means reaction, being panic in essence, and Maurice saw no how natural it was that their primitive abandonment at Penge should led to peril. They knew too little about each other— and too much. Hence fear. Hence cruelty.

Maurice was drawn in through Mr Scudder’s— no, Alec’s spasms of remorse and apology, the admission of truth. The blatant affection, and affirmations that was too scared to be spoken by Clive. It was different and all Maurice wanted.

Alec sent blackmail to win over Maurice’s attention—to snap Maurice out of his self righteous phase, believing class and conformity outweighed love. They met at the entrance of the British Museum, Tuesday.

By the end of their talk, huddled together under the moonlight, Maurice had missed his formal dinner party hosted by his family. His arm clasped and held Alec’s. They deserved such a caress— the feeling was strange. Words died away, abruptly to recommence. By now, Alec and Maurice were in love with one another consciously.