They watched him and they watched Amanda with a solicitude that
seemed at once pained and tender. And there was something about
Amanda, a kind of hard brightness, an impartiality and an air of
something undefinably suspended, that gave Benham an intuitive
certitude that that afternoon Sir Philip would be spoken to
privately, and that then he would pack up and go away in a state of
illumination from Chexington. But before he could be spoken to he
contrived to speak to Benham.
They were left to smoke after lunch, and then it was he took
advantage of a pause to commit his little indiscretion.
"Mrs. Benham," he said, "looks amazingly well--extraordinarily well,
don't you think?"
"Yes," said Benham, startled. "Yes. She certainly keeps very
well."
"She misses you terribly," said Sir Philip; "it is a time when a
woman misses her husband. But, of course, she does not want to
hamper your work. . . ."
Benham felt it was very kind of him to take so intimate an interest
in these matters, but on the spur of the moment he could find no
better expression for this than a grunt.
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