There was sufficient glory already (to probe his mind to the bottom) for Lady Ashbridge in being his wife; it was sufficient also for Michael that he was his son.
It may be inferred that there was a touch of pomposity about this admirable gentleman, who was so excellent a landlord and so hard working a member of the British aristocracy.

But pomposity would be far too superficial a word to apply to him; it would not adequately connote his deep-abiding and essential conviction that on one of the days of Creation (that, probably, on which the decree was made that there should be Light) there leaped into being the great landowners of England.
But Lord Ashbridge, though himself a peer, by no means accepted the peerage en bloc as representing the English aristocracy; to be, in his phrase, "one of us" implied that you belonged to certain well-ascertained families where brewers and distinguished soldiers had no place, unless it was theirs already.

He was ready to pay all reasonable homage to those who were distinguished by their abilities, their riches, their exalted positions in Church and State, but his homage to such was transfused with a courteous condescension, and he only treated as his equals and really revered those who belonged to the families that were "one of us." His wife, of course, was "one of us," since he would never have permitted himself to be allied to a woman who was not, though for beauty and wisdom she might have been Aphrodite and Athene rolled compactly into one peerless identity.

As a matter of fact, Lady Ashbridge had not the faintest resemblance to either of these effulgent goddesses.

In person she resembled a camel, long and lean, with a drooping mouth and tired, patient eyes, while in mind she was stunned.