5

In the disquisition upon choice that opened Benham’s paper on aristocracy, he showed himself momentarily wiser than his day-dreams.  For in these day-dreams he did seem to himself to be choosing among unlimited possibilities.  Yet while he dreamt other influences were directing his movements.  There were for instance his mother, Lady Marayne, who saw a very different London from what he did, and his mother Dame Nature, who cannot see London at all.  She was busy in his blood as she is busy in the blood of most healthy young men; common experience must fill the gaps for us; and patiently and thoroughly she was preparing for the entrance of that heroine, whom not the most self-centred of heroes can altogether avoid. . . .

And then there was the power of every day.  Benham imagined himself at large on his liberating steed of property while indeed he was mounted on the made horse of Civilization; while he was speculating whither he should go, he was already starting out upon the round.  One hesitates upon the magnificent plan and devotion of one’s lifetime and meanwhile there is usage, there are engagements.  Every morning came Merkle, the embodiment of the established routine, the herald of all that the world expected and required Benham to be and do.  Usually he awakened Benham with the opening of his door and the soft tinkle of the curtain rings as he let in the morning light.  He moved softly about the room, gathering up and removing the crumpled hulls of yesterday; that done he reappeared at the bedside with a cup of admirable tea and one thin slice of bread-and-butter, reported on the day’s weather, stood deferential for instructions.  “You will be going out for lunch, sir.  Very good, sir.  White slips of course, sir.  You will go down into the country in the afternoon?  Will that be the serge suit, sir, or the brown?”

These matters settled, the new aristocrat could yawn and stretch like any aristocrat under the old dispensation, and then as the sound of running water from the bathroom ceased, stick his toes out of bed.

The day was tremendously indicated.  World-states and aristocracies of steel and fire, things that were as real as coal-scuttles in Billy’s rooms away there at Cambridge, were now remoter than Sirius.

He was expected to shave, expected to bath, expected to go in to the bright warmth and white linen and silver and china of his breakfast-table.  And there he found letters and invitations, loaded with expectation.  And beyond the coffee-pot, neatly folded, lay the times, and the daily news and the telegraph all with an air of requiring his attention.  There had been more fighting in Thibet and Mr. Ritchie had made a Free Trade speech at Croydon.  The Japanese had torpedoed another Russian ironclad and a British cruiser was ashore in the East Indies.  A man had been found murdered in an empty house in Hoxton and the King had had a conversation with General Booth.  Tadpole was in for North Winchelsea, beating Taper by nine votes, and there had been a new cut in the Atlantic passenger rates.  He was expected to be interested and excited by these things.