Helpless, and as if nobody owned him, he looked.
"Have you gone on all right ?" asked the wife, rather wearily, as if it were an effort to talk to him.
"Yis," he answered.

"'Er's a bit behint-hand now and again, as yer might expect." "Does she have your dinner ready ?" asked Mrs.Morel.
"Well, I've 'ad to shout at 'er once or twice," he said.
"And you MUST shout at her if she's not ready.

She WILL leave things to the last minute." She gave him a few instructions.

He sat looking at her as if she were almost a stranger to him, before whom he was awkward and humble, and also as if he had lost his presence of mind, and wanted to run.

This feeling that he wanted to run away, that he was on thorns to be gone from so trying a situation, and yet must linger because it looked better, made his presence so trying.