“I am sure you are high-minded, my dear Michael,” he said.  “And it is to your high-mindedness that I—­yes, I don’t mind saying it—­that I appeal.  In a moment of unreflectiveness you have thrown overboard what I am sure is real to you, the sense, broadly speaking, that you are English and of the highest English class, and have intended to devote yourself to more selfish and pleasure-loving aims, and to dwell in a tinkle of pleasant sounds that please your ear; and I’m sure I don’t wonder, because, as your mother and I both know, you play charmingly.  But I feel confident that your better mind does not really confuse the mere diversions of life with its serious issues.”

Michael suddenly rose to his feet.

“Father, I’m afraid this is no use at all,” he said.  “All that I feel, and all that I can’t say, I know is unintelligible to you.  You have called it rubbish once, and you think it is rubbish still.”

Lord Ashbridge’s eloquence was suddenly arrested.  He had been cantering gleefully along, and had the very distinct impression of having run up against a stone wall.  He dismounted, hurt, but in no way broken.

“I am anxious to understand you, Michael,” he said.

“Yes, father, but you don’t,” said he.  “You have been explaining me all wrong.  For instance, I don’t regard music as a diversion.  That is the only explanation there is of me.”

“And as regards my wishes and my authority?” asked his father.

Michael squared his shoulders and his mind.

“I am exceedingly sorry to disappoint you in the matter of your wishes,” he said; “but in the matter of your authority I can’t recognise it when the question of my whole life is at stake.  I know that I am your son, and I want to be dutiful, but I have my own individuality as well.  That only recognises the authority of my own conscience.”

That seemed to Lord Ashbridge both tragic and ludicrous.  Completely subservient himself to the conventions which he so much enjoyed, it was like the defiance of a child to say such things.  He only just checked himself from laughing again.

“I refuse to take that answer from you,” he said.

“I have no other to give you,” said Michael.  “But I should like to say once more that I am sorry to disobey your wishes.”

The repetition took away his desire to laugh.  In fact, he could not have laughed.

“I don’t want to threaten you, Michael,” he said.  “But you may know that I have a very free hand in the disposal of my property.”

“Is that a threat?” asked Michael.

“It is a hint.”

“Then, father, I can only say that I should be perfectly satisfied with anything you may do,” said Michael.  “I wish you could leave everything you have to Francis.  I tell you in all sincerity that I wish he had been my elder brother.  You would have been far better pleased with him.”

Lord Ashbridge’s anger rose.  He was naturally so self-complacent as to be seldom disposed to anger, but its rarity was not due to kindliness of nature.