On the afternoon of his arrival at Chexington he was a little
surprised to find Sir Philip Easton coming through the house into
the garden, with an accustomed familiarity. Sir Philip perceived
him with a start that was instantly controlled, and greeted him with
unnatural ease.
Sir Philip, it seemed, was fishing and reading and playing cricket
in the neighbourhood, which struck Benham as a poor way of spending
the summer, the sort of soft holiday a man learns to take from
scholars and literary men. A man like Sir Philip, he thought, ought
to have been aviating or travelling.
Moreover, when Sir Philip greeted Amanda it seemed to Benham that
there was a flavour of established association in their manner. But
then Sir Philip was also very assiduous with Lady Marayne. She
called him "Pip," and afterwards Amanda called across the tennis-
court to him, "Pip!" And then he called her "Amanda." When the
Wilder girls came up to join the tennis he was just as brotherly. . . .
The next day he came to lunch.
During that meal Benham became more aware than he had ever been
before of the peculiar deep expressiveness of this young man's eyes.
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