第48章 CHAPTER THE THIRD(4)

And interweaving with such imaginings, he was some day to record, there were others.She had brought back to his memory the fancies that had been aroused in his first reading of Plato's REPUBLIC; she made him think of those women Guardians, who were the friends and mates of men.He wanted now to re-read that book and the LAWS.He could not remember if the Guardians were done in the LAWS as well as in the REPUBLIC.He wished he had both these books in his rucksack, but as he had not, he decided he would hunt for them in Chichester.

When would he see Amanda again? He would ask his mother to make the acquaintance of these very interesting people, but as they did not come to London very much it might be some time before he had a chance of seeing her again.And, besides, he was going to America and India.The prospect of an exploration of the world was still noble and attractive; but he realized it would stand very much in the way of his seeing more of Amanda.Would it be a startling and unforgivable thing if presently he began to write to her? Girls of that age and spirit living in out-of-the-way villages have been known to marry....

Marriage didn't at this stage strike Benham as an agreeable aspect of Amanda's possibilities; it was an inconvenience; his mind was running in the direction of pedestrian tours in armour of no particular weight, amidst scenery of a romantic wildness....

When he had gone to the house and taken his leave that morning it had seemed quite in the vein of the establishment that he should be received by Amanda alone and taken up the long garden before anybody else appeared, to see the daffodils and the early apple-trees in blossom and the pear-trees white and delicious.

Then he had taken his leave of them all and made his social tentatives.Did they ever come to London? When they did they must let his people know.He would so like them to know his mother, Lady Marayne.And so on with much gratitude.

Amanda had said that she and the dogs would come with him up the hill,, but it was a glorious sort of inhumanity.

They had a spirit--like sharp knives cutting through life."It was her best bit of phrasing and it pleased Benham very much.

But, indeed, it was not her own phrasing, she had culled it from a disquisition into which she had led Mr.Rathbone-me from going to pieces--and wasting existence.It's rather difficult sometimes to tell what one thinks and feels--"She had not really listened to him.

"Who is that woman," she interrupted sudd she had said it exactly as a boy might have said it, she had brought him up to the corner of Up Park and had sat down there on a heap of stones and watched him until he was out of sight, waving to him when he looked back."Come back again," she had cried.

In Chichester he found a little green-bound REPUBLIC in a second-hand book-shop near the Cathedral, but there was no copy of the LAWSto be found in the place.Then he was taken with the brilliant idea of sleeping the night in Chichester and going back next day via Harting to Petersfield station and London.He carried out this scheme and got to South Harting neatly about four o'clock in the afternoon.He found Mrs.Wilder and Mrs.Morris and Amanda and the dogs entertaining Mr.Rathbone-Sanders at tea, and they all seemed a little surprised, and, except Mr.Rathbone-Sanders, they all seemed pleased to see him again so soon.His explanation of why he hadn't gone back to London from Chichester struck him as a little unconvincing in the cold light of Mr.Rathbone-Sanders' eye.But Amanda was manifestly excited by his return, and he told them his impressions of Chichester and described the entertainment of the evening guest at a country inn and suddenly produced his copy of the REPUBLIC."I found this in a book-shop," he said, "and I brought it for you, because it describes one of the best dreams of aristocracy there has ever been dreamt."At first she praised it as a pretty book in the dearest little binding, and then realized that there were deeper implications, and became grave and said she would read it through and through, she loved such speculative reading.

She came to the door with the others and stayed at the door after they had gone in again.When he looked back at the corner of the road to Petersfield she was still at the door and waved farewell to him.

He only saw a light slender figure, but when she came back into the sitting-room Mr.Rathbone-Sanders noted the faint flush in her cheek and an unwonted abstraction in her eye.

And in the evening she tucked her feet up in the armchairSanders, and she had sent it to Benham as she might have sent him a flower.

6

Benham re-entered the flat from which he had fled so precipitately with three very definite plans in his mind.The first was to set out upon his grand tour of the world with as little delay as possible, to shut up this Finacue Street establishment for a long time, and get rid of the soul-destroying perfections ofenly, "Mrs.

Fly-by-Night, or some such name, who rings you up on the telephone?"Benham hesitaon't start saying things like a moral windmill in a whirlwind.It's all a muddle.I suppose every one in London is getting in or out of these entanglements--or something of the sort.And this seems a comparatively slight one.

I wish it hadn't happened.They do happen."An expression of perplexity came into her face.She looked at him.

"Why do you want to throw her over?"

"I WANT to throw her over," said Benham.

He stood up and went to the hearthrug, and his mother reflected that this was exactly what all men did at just this phase of a discussion.Then things ceased to be sensible.

From overhead he said to her: "I want to get away from this complication, this servitude.I want to do some--some work.I want to get my mind clear and my hands clear.I want to study government and the big business of the world.""And she's in the way?"

He assented.