"After tea. When it's cooler. We'll have it in here. By ourselves." He got up and rang the bell. The tea-table between them, and she, pouring out the tea. She was grown up. Her hair was grown up. It lay like a wreath, plaited on the top of her head. He was smoothing out the wrinkles of one hand with the other, and smiling. "Everybody busy except you and me, Mary.... How are you getting on with Kant?" "I've done with him. It's taken me four years. You see, either the German's hard or I'm awfully stupid." "German hard, I should imagine. Do you _like_ Kant?" "I like him awfully when he says exciting things about Space and Time. I don't like him when he goes maundering on about his old Categorical Imperative. You can because you ought--putting you off, like a clergyman." "Kant said that, did he? That shows what an old humbug he was.... And it isn't true, Mary, it isn't true." "If it was it wouldn't prove anything. That's what bothers me." "What bothers me is that it isn't true. If I did what I ought I'd be the busiest man in England. I wouldn't be sitting here. If I even did what I want--Do you know what I should like to do? To farm my own land instead of letting it out to these fellows here. I don't suppose you think me clever, but I've got ideas." "What sort of ideas?" "Practical ideas. Ideas that can be carried out. That ought to be carried out because they can. Ideas about cattle-breeding, cattle-feeding, chemical manuring, housing, labour, wages, everything that has to do with farming." Two years ago you talked and he listened. Now that you were grown up he talked to you and you listened. He had said it would make a difference. That was the difference it made. "Here I am, a landowner who can't do anything with his land. And I can't do anything for my labourers, Mary. If I keep a dry roof over their heads and a dry floor under their feet I'm supposed to have done my duty.... People will tell you that Mr. Sootcliffe's the great man of the place, but half of them look down on him because he doesn't farm his own land, and the other half kow-tow to him because he doesn't, because he's the landlord. And they all think I'm a dangerous man. They don't like ideas. They're afraid of 'em.... I'd like to sell every acre I've got here and buy land--miles and miles of it--that hasn't been farmed before. I'd show them what farming is if you bring brains to it." "I see. You _could_ do that." "Could I? The land's entailed. I can't sell it away from my son. And _he_'ll never do anything with it." "Aren't there other things you could have done?" "I suppose I could have got the farmers out. Turned them off the land they've sweated their lives into. Or I could have sold my town house instead of letting it and bought land." "Of course you could. Oh--why didn't you?" "Why didn't I? Ah--now you've got me. Because I'm a lazy old humbug, Mary. All my farming's in my head when it isn't on my conscience."