s own house, grounds, shooting, and to
contribute towards the support of this house, and my family, and racing
stable, and all the people employed about them both.

To allow any business to be run on my estates which does not contribute
to the general upkeep, is to protect and really pauperize a portion of my
tenants at the expense of the rest; it must therefore be false economics
and a secret sort of socialism. Further, if logically followed out, it
might end in my ruin, and to allow that, though I might not personally
object, would be to imply that I do not believe that I am by virtue of my
traditions and training, the best machinery through which the State can
work to secure the welfare of the people....

When he had reached that point in his consideration of the question, his
mind, or rather perhaps, his essential self, had not unnaturally risen up
and said: Which is absurd!

Impersonality was in fashion, and as a rule he believed in thinking
impersonally. There was a point, however, where the possibility of doing
so ceased, without treachery to oneself, one's order, and the country.
And to the argument which he was quite shrewd enough to put to himself,
sooner than have it put by anyone else, that it was disproportionate for
a single man by a stroke of the pen to be able to dispose of the
livelihood of hundreds whose senses and feelings were similar to his
own--he had answered: "If I didn't, some plutocrat or company would--or,
worse still, the State!" Cooperative enterprise being, in his opinion,
foreign to the spirit of the country, there was, so far as he could see,
no other alternative. Facts were facts and not to be got over!

Notwithstanding all this, the necessity for the decision made him sorry,
for if he had no great sense of proportion, he was at least humane.

He was still smoking his pipe and staring at a sheet of paper covered
with small figures when his wife entered. Though she had come to ask his
advice on a very different subject, she saw at once that he was vexed,
and said:

"What's the matter, Geoff?"

Lord Valleys rose, went to the hearth, deliberately tapped out his pipe,
then held out to her the sheet of paper.

"That quarry! Nothing for it--must go!"

Lady Valleys' face changed.

"Oh, no! It will mean such dreadful distress."

Lord Valleys stared at his nails. "It's putting a drag on the whole
estate," he said.

"I know, but how could we face the people--I should never be