第91章 CHAPTER THE FIFTH(22)

"I have got a remarkable persuasion that she lost herself in this way, by cheapening love, by making base love to a lover she despised....There can be no inequality in love.Give and take must balance.One must be one's natural self or the whole business is an indecent trick, a vile use of life! To use inferiors in love one must needs talk down to them, interpret oneself in their insufficient phrases, pretend, sentimentalize.And it is clear that unless oneself is to be lost, one must be content to leave alone all those people that one can reach only by sentimentalizing.But Amanda--and yet somehow I love her for it still--could not leave any one alone.So she was always feverishly weaving nets of false relationship.Until her very self was forgotten.So she will go on until the end.With Easton it had been necessary for her to key herself to a simple exalted romanticism that was entirely insincere.

She had so accustomed herself to these poses that her innate gestures were forgotten.She could not recover them; she could not even reinvent them.Between us there were momentary gleams as though presently we should be our frank former selves again.They were never more than momentary...."And that was all that this astonishing man had seen fit to tell of his last parting from his wife.

Perhaps he did Amanda injustice.Perhaps there was a stronger thread of reality in her desire to recover him than he supposed.

Clearly he believed that under the circumstances Amanda would have tried to recover anybody.

She had dressed for that morning's encounter in a very becoming and intimate wrap of soft mauve and white silk, and she had washed and dried her dark hair so that it was a vapour about her face.She set herself with a single mind to persuade herself and Benham that they were inseparable lovers, and she would not be deflected by his grim determination to discuss the conditions of their separation.When he asked her whether she wanted a divorce, she offered to throw over Sir Philip and banish him for ever as lightly as a great lady might sacrifice an objectionable poodle to her connubial peace.

Benham passed through perplexing phases, so that she herself began to feel that her practice with Easton had spoilt her hands.His initial grimness she could understand, and partially its breakdown into irritability.But she was puzzled by his laughter.For he laughed abruptly.

"You know, Amanda, I came home in a mood of tremendous tragedy.And really,--you are a Lark."And then overriding her altogether, he told her what he meant to do about their future and the future of their little son.

"You don't want a divorce and a fuss.Then I'll leave things.Iperceive I've no intention of marrying any more.But you'd better do the straight thing.People forget and forgive.Especially when there is no one about making a fuss against you.

"Perhaps, after all, there is something to be said for shirking it.

We'll both be able to get at the boy then.You'll not hurt him, and I shall want to see him.It's better for the boy anyhow not to have a divorce.

"I'll not stand in your way.I'll get a little flat and I shan't come too much to London, and when I do, you can get out of town.

You must be discreet about Easton, and if people say anything about him, send them to me.After all, this is our private affair.

"We'll go on about money matters as we have been going.I trust to you not to run me into overwhelming debts.And, of course, if at any time, you do want to marry--on account of children or anything--if nobody knows of this conversation we can be divorced then...."Benham threw out these decisions in little dry sentences while Amanda gathered her forces for her last appeal.