Suddenly the world looks brightly
cynical. . . . None of those tear-compelling German emanations. . . .
"And, Benham, I have found a friend.
"A woman. Of course you will laugh, you will sneer. You do not
understand these things. . . . Yet they are so simple. It was the
strangest accident brought us together. There was something that
drew us together. A sort of instinct. Near the Boulevard
Poissoniere. . . ."
"Good heavens!" said Benham. "A sort of instinct!"
"I told her all about Anna!"
"Good Lord!" cried Benham.
"She understood. Perfectly. None of your so-called 'respectable'
women could have understood. . . . At first I intended merely to
talk to her. . . ."
Benham crumpled the letter in his hand.
"Little Anna Alexievna!" he said, "you were too clean for him."
16
Benham had a vision of Prothero returning from all this foreign
travel meekly, pensively, a little sadly, and yet not without a kind
of relief, to the grey mildness of Trinity. He saw him, capped and
gowned, and restored to academic dignity again, nodding greetings,
resuming friendships.
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