She understood now at least something--a first fraction--of that inner life, masked so well beneath his quiet English capacity and unassuming manner.
He had spoken of his Cambridge years, of his friend, of the desire of his heart to make his landowner's power and position contribute something towards that new and better social order, which he too, like Hallin--though more faintly and intermittently--believed to be approaching.

The difficulties of any really new departure were tremendous; he saw them more plainly and more anxiously than Hallin.

Yet he believed that he had thought his way to some effective reform on his grandfather's large estate, and to some useful work as one of a group of like-minded men in Parliament.

She must have often thought him careless and apathetic towards his great trust.

But he was not so--not careless--but paralysed often by intellectual difficulty, by the claims of conflicting truths.
She, too, explained herself most freely, most frankly.