He had to address friendly words to Michael that really almost choked him; he had to practise cordiality with this wretch who wanted to marry the sister of a music-master.

Michael had pulled up all the old traditions, that carefully-tended and pompous flower-garden, as if they had been weeds, and thrown them in his father's face.

It was indeed no wonder that, in his wife's absence, he almost burst with indignation over the desecrated beds.

More than that, his own self-esteem was hurt by his wife's fear of him, just as if he had been a hard and unkind husband to her, which he had not been, but merely a very self-absorbed and dominant one, while the one person who could make her quite happy was his despised son.
Michael's person, Michael's tastes, Michael's whole presence and character were repugnant to him, and yet Michael had the power which, to do Lord Ashbridge justice, he would have given much to be possessed of himself, of bringing comfort and serenity to his wife.
On the afternoon of the day following Christmas the two cousins had been across the estuary to Ashbridge together.

Francis, who, in spite of his habitual easiness of disposition and general good temper, had found the conditions of anger and anxiety quite intolerable, had settled to leave next day, instead of stopping till the end of the week, and Michael acquiesced in this without any sense of desertion; he had really only wondered why Francis had stopped three nights, instead of finding urgent private business in town after one.