"I may be away
for two years, and I thought I would like to see you all again
before I started."
That was quite the way they did things.
The supper-party included Mr. Rathbone-Sanders, who displayed a
curious tendency to drift in between Benham and Amanda, a literary
youth with a Byronic visage, very dark curly hair, and a number of
extraordinarily mature chins, a girl-friend of Betty's who had
cycled down from London, and who it appeared maintained herself at
large in London by drawing for advertisements, and a silent
colourless friend of Mr. Rathbone-Sanders. The talk lit by Amanda's
enthusiasm circled actively round Benham's expedition. It was clear
that the idea of giving some years to thinking out one's possible
work in the world was for some reason that remained obscure highly
irritating to both Mr. Rathbone-Sanders and the Byronic youth.
Betty too regarded it as levity when there was "so much to be done,"
and the topic whacked about and rose to something like a wrangle,
and sat down and rested and got up again reinvigorated, with a
continuity of interest that Benham had never yet encountered in any
London gathering.
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