His father had tried to press him in the family mold, and he remembered those unbearable days.  Now, from his remote grave the first Bonbright Foote reached out with the same mold and laid his hands on the hope of the line. ...  Bonbright read the words many times.  His was the choice to obey or to disobey, to remain an individual, distinct and separate from all other individuals since the world began, or to become the sixth reincarnation of Bonbright Foote I. ...  The day following his father’s burial he chose, not rashly in haste, nor without studied reason.  To others the decision might not have seemed momentous; to Bonbright it was epoch-marking.  It did mark an epoch in the history of the Foote family.  It was the Family’s French Revolution.  It was Martin Luther throwing his inkpot at the devil—­and overturning the ages.

Bonbright’s decision required physical expression.  Most human decisions require physical expression to give them effect.  He had a feeling as though six disembodied Bonbright Footes stood about in an agony of anxiety, watching to see what he would do as he took the emblematical paper in his hands.  He tore it very slowly, tore it again and again into ribbons and into squares, and let them flutter into his wastebasket. ...  If others had been present to assert that they heard a groan he would not have denied it, for the ancestors were very real to him then... their presence was a definite fact.

“There...” he said.  The king was dead.  Long live the king!

It was after that he had his talk with his mother.  Perhaps he was abrupt, but he dreaded that talk.  Perhaps his diplomacy was faulty or lacking.  Perhaps he made mistakes and failed to rise to the requirements of the conditions and of his relationship with her.  He did his best.

“Mother,” he said, “we must talk things over.”

She sat silently, waiting for him to speak.

“Whatever you wish,” he said, “I shall do... if I can.”

“There is a qualification?” she said.

“Suppose you tell me what you want done,” he said.

“I want you to come to your senses and realize your position,” she said, coldly.  “I want you to get rid of that woman and, after a decent interval, marry some suitable girl. ...”

“I was discussing your affairs, mother, not mine.  We will not refer to my wife.”

“All I want,” she said, “is what I am entitled to as your father’s widow.”

“This house, of course,” he said.  “You will want to stay here.  I want you to stay here.”

“And you?”

“I prefer to live as I am.”

“You mean you do not care to come back here?”

“Yes.”

“You must.  I insist upon it.  You have caused scandal enough now. ...  People would talk.”

“Mother, we might as well understand each other at once.  I am not Bonbright Foote VII.  Let that be clear.  I am Bonbright Foote.  I am myself, an individual.  The old way of doing things is gone. ...  Perhaps you have heard of the family law—­the first Bonbright’s will. ...  I have just torn it up.”