As a rule she saw him unmarried--
with a wonderful little mother at his elbow. Sometimes in romantic
flashes he was adored by German princesses or eloped with Russian
grand-duchesses! But such fancies were HORS D'OEUVRE. The modern
biography deals with the career. Every project was bright, every
project had GO--tremendous go. And they all demanded a hero,
debonnaire and balanced. And Benham, as she began to perceive,
wasn't balanced. Something of his father had crept into him, a
touch of moral stiffness. She knew the flavour of that so well. It
was a stumbling, an elaboration, a spoil-sport and weakness. She
tried not to admit to herself that even in the faintest degree it
was there. But it was there.
"Tell me all that you are doing NOW," she said to him one afternoon
when she had got him to herself during his first visit to Chexington
Manor. "How do you like Cambridge? Are you making friends? Have
you joined that thing--the Union, is it?--and delivered your maiden
speech? If you're for politics, Poff, that's your game. Have you
begun it?"
She lay among splashes of sunshine on the red cushions in the punt,
a little curled-up figure of white, with her sweet pale animated
face warmed by the reflection of her red sunshade, and her eyes like
little friendly heavens.
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