Michael got up in silence. After all, this gift of himself, of his time,
of his liberty, of all that constituted life to him, was made not to
his father, but to his mother. It was made, as his heart knew, not
ungrudgingly only, but eagerly, and if it had been recommended by
the doctor that she should go to Ashbridge, he would have entirely
disregarded the large additional sacrifice on himself which it entailed.
Thus it was not owing to any retraction of his gift, or reconsideration
of it, that he demurred.

"I hope you will--will meet me half-way about this, sir," he said. "You
must remember that all my work lies in London. I want, naturally, to
continue that as far as I can. If you go to Ashbridge it is completely
interrupted. My friends are here too; everything I have is here."

His father seemed to swell a little; he appeared to fill the room.

"And all my duties lie at Ashbridge," he said. "As you know, I am not
of the type of absentee landlords. It is quite impossible that I should
spend these months in idleness in town. I have never done such a thing
yet, nor, I may say, would our class hold the position they do if we
did. We shall come up to town after Easter, should your mother's health
permit it, but till then I could not dream of neglecting my duties in
the country."

Now Michael knew perfectly well what his father's duties on that
excellently managed estate were. They consisted of a bi-weekly interview
in the "business-room" (an abode of files and stags' heads, in which
Lord Ashbridge received various reports of building schemes and
repairs), of a round of golf every afternoon, and of reading the
lessons and handing the offertory-box on Sunday. That, at least, was
the sum-total as it presented itself to him, and on which he framed
his conclusions. But he left out altogether the moral effect of the
big landlord living on his own land, and being surrounded by his
own dependents, which his father, on the other hand, so vastly
over-estimated. It was clear that there was not likely to be much accord
between them on this subject.

"But could you not go down there perhaps once or twice a week, and get
Bailey to come and consult you here?" he asked.

Lord Ashbridge held his head very high.

"That would be completely out of the question," he said.

All this, Michael felt, had nothing to do with the problem of his
mother and himself. It was outside it altogether, and concerned only
his father's convenience. He