as no statement of the case
so succinctly true.

Lord Ashbridge moved away towards the window, turning his back
on Michael. Even his back, his homespun Norfolk jacket, his loose
knickerbockers, his stalwart calves expressed disapproval; but when his
father spoke again he realised that he had moved away like that, and
obscured his face for a different reason.

"Have you noticed anything else about your mother?" he asked.

That made Michael understand.

"Yes, father," he said. "I daresay I am wrong about it--"

"Naturally I may not agree with you; but I should like to know what it
is."

"She's afraid of you," said Michael.

Lord Ashbridge continued looking out of the window a little longer,
letting his eyes dwell on his own garden and his own fields, where
towered the leafless elms and the red roofs of the little town which
had given him his own name, and continued to give him so satisfactory an
income. There presented itself to his mind his own picture, painted and
framed and glazed and hung up by himself, the beneficent nobleman, the
conscientious landlord, the essential vertebra of England's backbone. It
was really impossible to impute blame to such a fine fellow. He turned
round into the room again, braced and refreshed, and saw Michael thus.

"It is quite true what you say," he said, with a certain pride in his
own impartiality. "She has developed an extraordinary timidity towards
me. I have continually noticed that she is nervous and agitated in my
presence--I am quite unable to account for it. In fact, there is no
accounting for it. But I am thinking of going up to London before long,
and making her see some good doctor. A little tonic, I daresay; though I
don't suppose she has taken a dozen doses of medicine in as many years.
I expect she will be glad to go up, for she will be near you. The one
delusion--for it is no less than that--is as strange as the other."

He drew himself up to his full magnificent height.

"I do not mean that it is not very natural she should be devoted to her
son," he said with a tremendous air.

What he did mean was therefore uncertain, and again he changed the
subject.

"There is a third thing," he said. "This concerns you. You are of the
age when we Combers usually marry. I should wish you to marry, Michael.
During this last year your mother has asked half a dozen girls down
here, all of whom she and I consider perfectly suitable, and no doubt
you have met more in London.