He had not liked it.

Too much of a piece with the general unrest, and these new democratic ideas that were playing old Harry with the country! For in his opinion the country was in a bad way, partly owing to Industrialism, with its rotting effect upon physique; partly to this modern analytic Intellectualism, with its destructive and anarchic influence on morals.

It was difficult to overestimate the mischief of those two factors; and in the approaching conference with his brothers, one of whom was the head of an industrial undertaking, and the other a writer, whose books, extremely modern, he never read, he was perhaps vaguely conscious of his own cleaner hands.

Hearing a car come to a halt outside, he went to the window and looked out.

Yes, it was Stanley!...
Stanley Freeland, who had motored up from Becket--his country place, close to his plough works in Worcestershire--stood a moment on the pavement, stretching his long legs and giving directions to his chauffeur.