At first he had been
perfect. . . .
But Amanda was more prepared for human inconsecutiveness than
Benham, because she herself was inconsecutive, and her
dissatisfaction with his irritations and preoccupation broadened to
no general discontent. He had seemed perfect and he wasn't. So
nothing was perfect. And he had to be managed, just as one must
manage a dog or a cousin or a mother or a horse. Anyhow she had got
him, she had no doubt that she held him by a thousand ties, the
spotless leopard had him between her teeth, he was a prisoner in the
dusk of her hair, and the world was all one vast promise of
entertainment.
6
But the raid into the Balkans was not the tremendous success she had
expected it to be. They had adventures, but they were not the
richly coloured, mediaeval affairs she had anticipated. For the
most part until Benham broke loose beyond Ochrida they were
adventures in discomfort. In those remote parts of Europe inns die
away and cease, and it had never occurred to Amanda that inns could
die away anywhere.
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