r whose fastidious,
sensitive nature sensual lures had no attraction, a man who could not
lie, who could not stoop, whose mind was as clean as his hand, and, for
an Englishman, that is saying a good deal. He was manly in a physical
sense. He rode straight, he shot well. He could endure bodily strain
with indifference, though he was not robustly built. He was sane,
even-tempered, liable to petty resentments, mildly and resolutely
selfish, except where Michael was concerned, a conscientious and just
master--at least, just in intention--a patient and respectful son where
patience and respect had not been easy.

The strain of scholar and student in him was about evenly mixed with
that of the country gentleman. The result was a certain innate sense of
superiority which he was not in the least aware that he showed. He had
no idea that he was considered "fine," and "thinking a good deal of
himself," by the more bucolic of his country neighbours. No one could
say that Wentworth was childlike, but perhaps he was a little childish.
He certainly had a _naif_ and unshakable belief that the impressions he
had formed as to his own character were shared by others. He supposed it
was recognised by his neighbours that they had a thinker in their midst,
and always tacitly occupied the ground which he imagined had been
conceded to him on that account.

His mother, a beautiful, foolish, whimsical, hard-riding heiress, the
last of a long line, had married the youngest son--the one brilliant,
cultivated member--of a family as ancient, as uneducated, and as prosaic
as her own. Wentworth was the result of that union. His father had died
before his talents were fully recognised: that is to say, just when it
was beginning to be perceived that he was a genius only in his own
class, and that there were hordes of educated men in the middle classes
who could beat him at every point on his own ground, except in carriage
and appearance, and whom no one regarded as specially gifted. Still, in
his own county, among his own friends, and in a society where education
and culture eke out a precarious, interloping existence, and are
regarded with distrustful curiosity, Lord Wilfrid Maine lived and died,
and was mourned as a genius.

After many years of uneasy, imprudent widowhood, the widow of the great
man had made a disastrous second marriage, and had died at Michael's
birth.

No one had disputed with Wentworth over the possession of Michael.
Wentwort