12
It was only as they sat at a little table in the orchard at
Grantchester after their lunch that Benham could make head against
Prothero and recover that largeness of outlook which had so easily
touched the imagination of Amanda. And then he did not so much
dispose of Prothero's troubles as soar over them. It is the last
triumph of the human understanding to sympathize with desires we do
not share, and to Benham who now believed himself to be loved beyond
the chances of life, who was satisfied and tranquil and austerely
content, it was impossible that Prothero's demands should seem
anything more than the grotesque and squalid squealings of the beast
that has to be overridden and rejected altogether. It is a freakish
fact of our composition that these most intense feelings in life are
just those that are most rapidly and completely forgotten; hate one
may recall for years, but the magic of love and the flame of desire
serve their purpose in our lives and vanish, leaving no trace, like
the snows of Venice. Benham was still not a year and a half from
the meretricious delights of Mrs.
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