all kinds was what she hated, and
of that particular form of extravagance which Mr. Paramor so vulgarly
called "Pendycitis" she had a horror.

It may happen that for long years the likeness between father and son
will lie dormant, and only when disintegrating forces threaten the links
of the chain binding them together will that likeness leap forth, and
by a piece of Nature's irony become the main factor in destroying
the hereditary principle for which it is the silent, the most worthy,
excuse.

It is certain that neither George nor his father knew the depth to which
this "Pendycitis" was rooted in the other; neither suspected, not even
in themselves, the amount of essential bulldog at the bottom of their
souls, the strength of their determination to hold their own in the way
that would cause the greatest amount of unnecessary suffering. They
did not deliberately desire to cause unnecessary suffering; they simply
could not help an instinct passed by time into their fibre, through
atrophy of the reasoning powers and the constant mating, generation
after generation, of those whose motto had been, "Kings of our own
dunghills." And now George came forward, defying his mother's belief
that he was a Totteridge, as champion of the principle in tail male; for
in the Totteridges, from whom in this stress he diverged more and
more towards his father's line, there was some freer strain, something
non-provincial, and this had been so ever since Hubert de-Totteridge had
led his private crusade, from which he had neglected to return. With the
Pendyces it had been otherwise; from immemorial time "a county family,"
they had construed the phrase literally, had taken no poetical licences.
Like innumerable other county families, they were perforce what their
tradition decreed--provincial in their souls.

George, a man-about-town, would have stared at being called provincial,
but a man cannot stare away his nature. He was provincial enough to keep
Mrs. Bellew bound when she herself was tired of him, and consideration
for her, and for his own self-respect asked him to give her up. He had
been keeping her bound for two months or more. But there was much excuse
for him. His heart was sore to breaking-point; he was sick with longing,
and deep, angry wonder that he, of all men, should be cast aside like a
worn-out glove. Men tired of women daily--that was the law. But what was
this? His dogged instinct had fought against the knowledge as long