“Well, it’s like this, father,” he said.  “I’m doing no good as I am.  I went into the Guards, as you know, because it was the right thing to do.  A business man’s son is put into business for the same reason.  And I’m not good at it.”

Michael paused a moment.

“My heart isn’t in it,” he said, “and I dislike it.  It seems to me useless.  We’re for show.  And my heart is quite entirely in music.  It’s the thing I care for more than anything else.”

Again he paused; all that came so easily to his tongue when he was speaking to Francis was congealed now when he felt the contempt with which, though unexpressed, he knew he inspired his father.

Lord Ashbridge waited with careful politeness, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, his large person completely filling his chair, just as his atmosphere filled the room.  He said nothing at all until the silence rang in Michael’s ears.

“That is all I can tell you,” he said at length.

Lord Ashbridge carefully conveyed the ash from his cigarette to the fireplace before he spoke.  He felt that the time had come for his most impressive effort.

“Very well, then, listen to me,” he said.  “What you suffer from, Michael, is a mere want of self-confidence and from modesty.  You don’t seem to grasp—­I have often noticed this—­who you are and what your importance is—­an importance which everybody is willing to recognise if you will only assume it.  You have the privileges of your position, which you don’t sufficiently value, but you have, also, the responsibilities of it, which I am afraid you are inclined to shirk.  You haven’t got the large view; you haven’t the sense of patriotism.  There are a great many things in my position—­the position into which you will step—­which I would much sooner be without.  But we have received a tradition, and we are bound to hand it on intact.  You may think that this has nothing to do with your being in the Guards, but it has.  We”—­and he seemed to swell a little—­“we are bound in honour to take the lead in the service of our country, and we must do it whether we like it or not.  We have to till, with our own efforts, ‘our goodly heritage.’  You have to learn the meaning of such words as patriotism, and caste, and duty.”

Lord Ashbridge thought that he was really putting this very well indeed, and he had the sustaining consciousness of sincerity.  He entirely believed what he said, and felt that it must carry conviction to anyone who listened to it with anything like an open mind.  The only thing that he did not allow for was that he personally immensely enjoyed his social and dominant position, thinking it indeed the only position which was really worth having.  This naturally gave an aid to comprehension, and he did not take into account that Michael was not so blessed as he, and indeed lacked this very superior individual enlightenment.  But his own words kindled the flame of this illumination, and without noticing the blank stolidity of Michael’s face he went on with gathering confidence: