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.