A few days later Howard was summoned back to Cambridge.  One of his colleagues was ill, and arrangements had to be made to provide for his work.  It astonished him to find how reluctant he was to return; he seemed to have found the sort of life he needed in this quiet place.  He had walked with the Vicar, and had been deluged with interesting particulars about the parish.  Much of it was very trivial, but Howard saw that the Vicar had a real insight into the people and their ways.  He had not seen Maud again to speak to, and it vexed him to find how difficult it was to create occasions for meeting.  His mind and imagination had been taken captive by the girl; he thought of her constantly, and recalled her in a hundred charming vignettes; the hope of meeting her was constantly in his mind; he had taught Jack a good deal, but he became more and more aware that for some reason or other his pupil was not pleased with him.

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!”