Desire and Jealousy should deflect his life
no more; like Fear they were to be dismissed as far as possible and
subdued when they could not be altogether dismissed. Whatever
stirrings of blood or imagination there were in him after that
parting, whatever failures from this resolution, they left no trace
on the rest of his research, which was concerned with the hates of
peoples and classes and war and peace and the possibilities science
unveils and starry speculations of what mankind may do.
32
But Benham did not leave England again until he had had an encounter
with Lady Marayne.
The little lady came to her son in a state of extraordinary anger
and distress. Never had she seemed quite so resolute nor quite so
hopelessly dispersed and mixed. And when for a moment it seemed to
him that she was not as a matter of fact dispersed and mixed at all,
then with an instant eagerness he dismissed that one elucidatory
gleam. "What are you doing in England, Poff?" she demanded. "And
what are you going to do?
"Nothing! And you are going to leave her in your house, with your
property and a lover.
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