politics) was in horses, he had been, as it were, compelled by common
sense, not only to tolerate, but to take up and even press forward
the cause of their supplanters. His instinct of self-preservation was
secretly at work, hurrying him to his own destruction; forcing him to
persuade himself that science and her successive victories over brute
nature could be wooed into the service of a prestige which rested on a
crystallized and stationary base. All this keeping pace with the times,
this immersion in the results of modern discoveries, this speeding-up
of existence so that it was all surface and little root--the increasing
volatility, cosmopolitanism, and even commercialism of his life, on
which he rather prided himself as a man of the world--was, with a
secrecy too deep for his perception, cutting at the aloofness logically
demanded of one in his position. Stubborn, and not spiritually subtle,
though by no means dull in practical matters, he was resolutely letting
the waters bear him on, holding the tiller firmly, without perceiving
that he was in the vortex of a whirlpool. Indeed, his common sense
continually impelled him, against the sort of reactionaryism of which
his son Miltoun had so much, to that easier reactionaryism, which,
living on its spiritual capital, makes what material capital it can out
of its enemy, Progress.

He drove the car himself, shrewd and self-contained, sitting easily,
with his cap well drawn over those steady eyes; and though this
unexpected meeting of the Cabinet in the Whitsuntide recess was not only
a nuisance, but gave food for anxiety, he was fully able to enjoy the
swift smooth movement through the summer air, which met him with such
friendly sweetness under the great trees of the long avenue. Beside
him, little Ann was silent, with her legs stuck out rather wide apart.
Motoring was a new excitement, for at home it was forbidden; and a
meditative rapture shone in her wide eyes above her sudden little nose.