His own life looked somehow poor and mean to him as he turned back to it. The Socialist of course--Burrows--would say that he and Letty and his mother were merely living, and dressing, and enjoying themselves, paying butlers, and starting carriages out of the labour and pain of others--that Jamie Batchelor and his like risked and brutalised their strong young lives that Lady Tressady and her like might "jig and amble" through theirs. Pure ignorant fanaticism, no doubt! But he was not so ready as usual to shelter himself under the big words of controversy. Fontenoy's favourite arguments had momentarily no savour for a kind of moral nausea. "I begin to see it was a 'cursed spite' that drove me into the business at all," he said to himself, as he stood under the trees. What he was really suffering from was an impatience of new conditions--perhaps surprise that he was not more equal to them. Till his return home--till now, almost--he had been an employer and a coal-owner by proxy. Other people had worked for him, had solved his problems for him. Then a transient impulse had driven him home--made him accept Fontenoy's offer--worse luck!--at least, Letty apart! The hopefulness and elation about himself, his new activities, and his Parliamentary prospects, that had been his predominant mood in London seemed to him at this moment of depression mere folly. What he really felt, he declared to himself, was a sort of cowardly shrinking from life and its tests--the recognition that at bottom he was a weakling, without faiths, without true identity. Then the quick thought-process, as it flowed on, told him that there are two things that protect men of his stamp from their own lack of moral stamina: perpetual change of scene, that turns the world into a spectacle--and love. He thought with hunger of his travel-years; holding away from him, as it were, for a moment the thought of his marriage. But only for a moment. It was but a few weeks since a woman's life had given itself wholly into his hands. He was still thrilling under the emotion and astonishment of it. Tender, melting thoughts flowed upon him. His little Letty! Had he ever thought her perfect, free from natural covetousness and weaknesses? What folly! _He_ to ask for the grand style in character! He looked at his watch. How long he had left her! Let him hurry, and make his peace.