His English soul was disturbed and affronted by a wholly new realization of the strength of America, by the giant forces of the young nation, as they are to be felt pulsing in the Federal City.

He was up in arms for the Old World, wondering sorely and secretly what the New might do with her in the times to come, and foreseeing an ever-increasing deluge of unlovely things--ideals, principles, manners--flowing from this western civilization, under which his own gods were already half buried, and would soon be hidden beyond recovery.
And in this despondency which possessed him, in spite of the attentions of Embassies, and luncheons at the White House, he had heard that Roger was in New York, and could not resist the temptation to send for him.
After all, Roger was his heir.

Unless the boy flagrantly misbehaved himself, he would inherit General Hobson's money and small estate in Northamptonshire.

Before the death of Roger's father this prospective inheritance, indeed, had not counted for very much in the family calculations.

The General had even felt a shyness in alluding to a matter so insignificant in comparison with the general scale on which the Barnes family lived.