tover was aware in more ways than one of Jeff's exclusion from
authority in the place, where he was constantly set aside from the
management as if his future were so definitely dedicated to another
calling that not even his advice was desired or permitted; and he could
not help sympathizing a little with him when he chafed at his rejection.
He saw a great deal of him, and he thought him quite up to the
average of Harvard's Seniors in some essentials. He had been sobered,
apparently, by experience; his unfortunate love-affair seemed to have
improved him, as the phrase is.

They had some long walks and long talks together, and in one of them
Jeff opened his mind, if not his heart, to the painter. He wanted to
be the Landlord of the Lion's Head, which he believed he could make the
best hotel in the mountains. He knew, of course, that he could not hope
to make any changes that did not suit his mother and his brother, as
long as they had the control, but he thought they would let him have the
control sooner if his mother could only be got to give up the notion of
his being a lawyer. As nearly as he could guess, she wanted him to be
a lawyer because she did not want him to be a hotel-keeper, and her
prejudice against that was because she believed that selling liquor made
her father a drunkard.

"Well, now you know enough about me, Mr. Westover, to know that drink
isn't my danger."

"Yes, I think I do," said Westover.

"I went a little wild in my Freshman year, and I got into that scrape,
but I've never been the worse for liquor since; fact is, I never touch
it now. There isn't any more reason why I should take to drink because I
keep a hotel than Jackson; but just that one time has set mother against
it, and I can't seem to make her understand that once is enough for me.
Why, I should keep a temperance house, here, of course; you can't
do anything else in these days. If I was left to choose between
hotel-keeping and any other life that I know of, I'd choose it every
time," Jeff went on, after a moment of silence. "I like a hotel. You can
be your own man from the start; the start's made here, and I've helped
to make it. All you've got to do is to have common-sense in the hotel
business, and you're sure to succeed. I believe I've got common-sense,
and I believe I've got some ideas that I can work up into a great
success. The reason that most people fail in the hotel business is that
they waste so much, and the landlord that