"It is rather rotten. But it can't be helped."
"Can't you get some intelligent kind of work, writing or something?"
"I'm not good enough. Don't make foolish interruptions. It's quite true. And remember I chucked up a teaching post."
"But routine must be worse for a person like you."
"It isn't nice. Really I think the most miserable people of all are those who are just too good for dull work and not good enough for real, original, creative work."
"That's painfully true," he answered. And there, gloomily, they left it.
That night Martin reflected on the events of the day. What surprised him most was the depth and intensity of his feelings about Freda. It wasn't love, it wasn't mere sympathy: was it just sentimentality? It is a habit of the younger generation in these days to turn their sexual emotions into channels of political reasoning: the result is called feminism. Instead of defending hapless women with strong right arm they are eager to defend underpaid women by strike or Act of Parliament. There is little difference, for the reason that Nature cannot be cheated. The pitchfork of modernity will not keep it out, and chivalry, loathed in name, comes bravely back in disguise. In matters of personal relation feminism is dangerous just because it is insidious. Martin had already formed his picture of Freda, overworked and underpaid, homeless and driven from pillar to post. The image was painful, but it pleased him so to suffer.
On Saturday there was to be shooting, the last of the season. People were coming down for the week-end and, doubtless, neighbours would be there. In the home coverts cock pheasants still trumpeted in peace, but their time had come.
Martin had no gun of his own, but sometimes he used a spare weapon of his uncle's. If he had been more efficient he would have liked the actual shooting: he could see the point of it and appreciate the thrill of waiting and achieving. But he had neither the long experience nor the swift eye and he was glad when the gun was needed by someone else. Freda would not see his lack of skill, for Robert had brought a friend from town for whom the gun would be required.
Neither Margaret nor Freda went out in the morning, and Martin also stayed in to work. The guns came back to lunch at half-past twelve, as they had begun to shoot early, for that made a better division of the short daylight. When they went out again Margaret accompanied Robert's friend and Martin took Freda to watch the first drive. The air was soft: otherwise Freda, being still convalescent, would not have been allowed to stand about. But it was considered warm enough for her if she wore a thick motoring coat of Margaret's. Here and there films of mist hung thinly over fields, but in the woods it was clear: the wind spoke gently in the trees or passed in silence down the rides and open glades. Underfoot rustled the drifting, many-tinted leaves and the flight of a startled song-bird made the still air reverberate. The fragrance of distant pines was mingled with the scent of the leaf-mould and sometimes the glint of the birch's silver broke the splendid monotony of giant trunks.