I
wanted you to make friends with her. I think the lack in your life
is that you have known so few women; men and women can never
understand each other, of course; but they have got to live
together and work together; and one ought to live with people whom
one does not understand. You and your undergraduates don't yield
any mysteries. You, no doubt, know exactly what they are thinking,
and they know what you are thinking. It's all very pleasant and
wholesome, but one can't get on very far that way. You mustn't
think Maud is a sort of undergraduate. Probably you think you know
a great deal about her already--but she isn't the least what you
imagine, any more than I am. Nor are you what I imagine; but I am
quite content with my mistaken idea of you."
XI
JACK
The next day's dinner was a disappointment. The Vicar expatiated,
Jack counted, and became so intent on his counting that he hardly
said a word; indeed Howard was not sure that he was wholly pleased
with the turn affairs had taken; he was rather touched by this than
otherwise, because it seemed to him that Jack was really, if
unconsciously, a little jealous. His whole visit had been rather
too much of a success: Jack had expected to act as showman of his
menagerie, and to play the principal part; and Howard felt that
Jack suspected him of having taken the situation too much into his
own hands. He felt that Jack was not pleased with his puppets; his
father had needed no apologies or explanations, Maud had been
forward, he himself had been donnish.
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