"I've done all I can for you, planned for you, given all my time for
you and I've BORED you."
"Mother!"
"Don't come near me, Poff! Don't TOUCH me! All my plans. All my
ambitions. Friends--every one. You don't know all I've given up
for you. . . ."
He had never seen his mother weep before. Her self-abandonment
amazed him. Her words were distorted by her tears. It was the most
terrible and distressing of crises. . . .
"Go away from me! How can you help me? All I've done has been a
failure! Failure! Failure!"
8
That night the silences of Finacue Street heard Benham's voice
again. "I must do my job," he was repeating, "I must do my job.
Anyhow. . . ."
And then after a long pause, like a watchword and just a little
unsurely: "Aristocracy. . . ."
The next day his resolution had to bear the brunt of a second
ordeal. Mrs. Skelmersdale behaved beautifully and this made
everything tormentingly touching and difficult. She convinced him
she was really in love with him, and indeed if he could have seen
his freshness and simplicity through her experienced eyes he would
have known there was sound reason why she should have found him
exceptional.
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