There was still an immense pleasure for him in her vigour; there was something delightful in her pounce, even when she was pouncing on things superficial, vulgar or destructive.  She made him understand and share the excitement of a big night at the opera, the glitter and prettiness of a smart restaurant, the clustering little acute adventures of a great reception of gay people, just as she had already made him understand and sympathize with dogs.  She picked up the art world where he had laid it down, and she forced him to feel dense and slow before he rebelled against her multitudinous enthusiasms and admirations.  South Harting had had its little group of artistic people; it is not one of your sleepy villages, and she slipped back at once into the movement.  Those were the great days of John, the days before the Post Impressionist outbreak.  John, Orpen, Tonks, she bought them with vigour.  Artistic circles began to revolve about her.  Very rapidly she was in possession. . . .  And among other desirable things she had, it seemed, pounced upon and captured Lady Marayne.

At any rate it was clear that that awful hostile silence and aloofness was to end.  Benham never quite mastered how it was done.  But Amanda had gone in one morning to Desborough Street, very sweetly and chastely dressed, had abased herself and announced a possible (though subsequently disproved) grandchild.  And she had appreciated the little lady so highly and openly, she had so instantly caught and reproduced her tone, that her success, though only temporary in its completeness, was immediate.  In the afternoon Benham was amazed by the apparition of his mother amidst the scattered unsettled furnishings of the new home Amanda had chosen in Lancaster Gate.  He was in the hall, the door stood open awaiting packing-cases from a van without.  In the open doorway she shone, looking the smallest of dainty things.  There was no effect of her coming but only of her having arrived there, as a little blue butterfly will suddenly alight on a flower.

“Well, Poff!” said Lady Marayne, ignoring abysses, “What are you up to now, Poff?  Come and embrace me. . . .”

“No, not so,” she said, “stiffest of sons. . . .”

She laid hold of his ears in the old fashion and kissed one eye.

“Congratulations, dear little Poff.  Oh! congratulations!  In heaps.  I’m so glad.”

Now what was that for?

And then Amanda came out upon the landing upstairs, saw the encounter with an involuntary cry of joy, and came downstairs with arms wide open.  It was the first intimation he had of their previous meeting.  He was for some minutes a stunned, entirely inadequate Benham. . . .

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