He and Jack were returning one day from fishing, and they had come nearer than Howard had liked to having a squabble. Howard had said something about an undergraduate, a friend of Jack's. Jack had seemed to resent the criticism, and said, "I am not quite sure whether you know so much about him as you think. Do you always analyse people like that? I sometimes feel with you as if I were in a room full of specimens which you were showing off, and that you knew more about them dead than alive."
"That's rather severe!" said Howard; "I simply try to understand people—I suppose we all do that."
"No, I don't," said Jack; "I think it's rather stuffy, if you want to know. I have a feeling that you have been turning everyone inside out here. I think one ought to let people alone."
"Well," said Howard, "it all depends upon what one wants to do with people. I think that, as a matter of fact, you are really more inclined to deal with people, to use them for your own purposes, than I am. You know what you want, and other people have got to follow. Of course, up at Beaufort, it's my business to try to do that to a certain extent; but that is professional, and a matter of business."
"But the worst of doing it professionally," said Jack, "is that you can't get out of the way of doing it unprofessionally. You seem to me to have rather purchased this place. I know you are to be squire, and all that; but you want to make yourself felt. I am not sure that you aren't rather a Jesuit."
"Come," said Howard, "that's going too far—we can't afford to quarrel. I don't mind your saying what you think; but if you have the right to take your own line, you must allow the same right to others."
"That depends!" said Jack, and was silent for a moment. Then he turned to Howard and said, "Yes, you are quite right! I am sorry I said all that. You have done no end for me, and I am an ungrateful little beast. It is rather fine of you not to remind me of all the trouble you have taken; there isn't anyone who would have done so much; and you have really laid yourself out to do what I liked here. I am sorry, I am truly sorry. I suppose I felt myself rather cock of the walk here, and am vexed that you have got the whole thing into your hands!"
"All right," said Howard, "I entirely understand; and look here, I am glad you said what you did. You are not wholly wrong. I have interfered perhaps more than I ought; but you must believe me when I say this—that it isn't with a managing motive. I like people to like me; I don't want to direct them; only one can overdo trying to make people like one, and I feel I have overdone it. I ought to have gone to work in a different way."
"Well, I have put my foot in it again," said Jack; "it's awful to think that I have been lecturing one of the Dons about his duty. I shall be trying to brighten up their lives next. The mischief is that I don't think I do want people to like me. I am not affectionate. I only want things to go smoothly."
They drew near to the Manor, and Jack said, "I promised Cousin Anne I would go in to tea. She has designs on me, that woman! She doesn't approve of me; she says the sharpest things in her quiet way; one hardly knows she has done it, and then when one thinks of it afterwards, one finds she has drawn blood. I am cross, I think! There seems to be rather a set at me just now; she makes me feel as if I were in bed, being nursed and slapped."