“If you really think that, my dear,” she said, “you have the distinction of being the worst possible judge of character that the world has ever known. Michael might be jealous of anybody else, for the poor boy feels his physical awkwardness most sensitively, but Francis is just the one person he really worships. He would do anything in the world for him.” The discussion with Barbara was being even more fruitless than that with his wife, and Lord Ashbridge rose. “All I can do, then, is to ask you not to back Michael up,” he said. “My dear, he won’t need backing up. He’s a match for you by himself. But if Michael, after thoroughly worsting you, asks me my opinion, I shall certainly give it him. But he won’t ask my opinion first. He will strew your limbs, Robert, over this delightful terrace.” “Michael’s train is late,” said Lady Ashbridge, hearing the stable clock strike. “He should have been here before this.” Barbara had still a word to say, and disregarded this quencher. “But don’t think, Robert,” she said, “that because Michael resists your wishes and authority, he will be enjoying himself. He will hate doing it, but that will not stop him.” Lord Ashbridge was not a bully; he had merely a profound sense of his own importance. “We will see about resistance,” he said. Barbara was not so successful on this occasion, and exploded loudly: “You will, dear, indeed,” she said. Michael meantime had been travelling down from London without perturbing himself over the scene with his father which he knew lay before him. This was quite characteristic of him; he had a singular command over his imagination when he had made up his mind to anything, and never indulged in the gratuitous pain of anticipation. Today he had an additional bulwark against such self-inflicted worries, for he had spent his last two hours in town at the vocal recital of a singer who a month before had stirred the critics into rhapsody over her gift of lyric song. Up till now he had had no opportunity of hearing her; and, with the panegyrics that had been showered on her in his mind, he had gone with the expectation of disappointment. But now, an hour afterwards, the wheels of the train sang her songs, and in the inward ear he could recapture, with the vividness of an hallucination, the timbre of that wonderful voice and also the sweet harmonies of the pianist who accompanied her.