"
He felt himself back in boyhood again with this stifling and leaden
atmosphere of authority and disapproval to breathe. He knew that Francis
in his place would have done somehow differently; he could almost
hear Aunt Barbara laughing at the pomposity of the situation that had
suddenly erected itself monstrously in front of him. The fact that he
was Michael Comber vexed his father--there was no statement of the case
so succinctly true.
Lord Ashbridge moved away towards the window, turning his back
on Michael. Even his back, his homespun Norfolk jacket, his loose
knickerbockers, his stalwart calves expressed disapproval; but when his
father spoke again he realised that he had moved away like that, and
obscured his face for a different reason.
"Have you noticed anything else about your mother?" he asked.
That made Michael understand.
"Yes, father," he said. "I daresay I am wrong about it--"
"Naturally I may not agree with you; but I should like to know what it
is."
"She's afraid of you," said Michael.
Lord Ashbridge continued looking out of the window a little longer,
letting his eyes dwell on his own garden and his own fields, where
towered the leafless elms and the red roofs of the little town which
had given him his own name, and continued to give him so satisfactory an
income.
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