“What are the assumptions underlying all this?” Benham asked himself in a phase of lucidity.

And after reflection.  “Good God!  The assumptions!  What do they think will satisfy me? . . .”

Everybody, however, did not point to Parliament.  Several people seemed to think Travel, with a large T, was indicated.  One distant cousin of Sir Godfrey’s, the kind of man of the world who has long moustaches, was for big game shooting.  “Get right out of all this while you are young,” he said.  “There’s nothing to compare with stopping a charging lion at twenty yards.  I’ve done it, my boy.  You can come back for all this pow-wow afterwards.”  He gave the diplomatic service as a second choice.  “There you are,” he said, “first-rate social position, nothing to do, theatres, operas, pretty women, colour, life.  The best of good times.  Barring Washington, that is.  But Washington, they say, isn’t as bad as it used to be—­ since Teddy has Europeanized ’em. . . .”

Even the Reverend Harold Benham took a subdued but thoughtful share in his son’s admonition.  He came up to the flat—­due precautions were taken to prevent a painful encounter—­he lunched at his son’s new club, and he was visibly oppressed by the contrast between the young man’s youthful fortunes and his own.  As visibly he bore up bravely.  “There are few men, Poff, who would not envy you your opportunities,” he said.  “You have the Feast of Life spread out at your feet. . . .  I hope you have had yourself put up for the Athenaeum.  They say it takes years.  When I was a young man—­and ambitious—­I thought that some day I might belong to the Athenaeum. . . .  One has to learn. . . .”

7

And with an effect of detachment, just as though it didn’t belong to the rest of him at all, there was beginning a sort of backstairs and underside to Benham’s life.  There is no need to discuss how inevitable that may or may not be in the case of a young man of spirit and large means, nor to embark upon the discussion of the temptations and opportunities of large cities.  Several ladies, of various positions and qualities, had reflected upon his manifest need of education.  There was in particular Mrs. Skelmersdale, a very pretty little widow with hazel eyes, black hair, a mobile mouth, and a pathetic history, who talked of old music to him and took him to a Dolmetsch concert in Clifford’s Inn, and expanded that common interest to a general participation in his indefinite outlook.  She advised him about his probable politics—­everybody did that—­but when he broke through his usual reserve and suggested views of his own, she was extraordinarily sympathetic.  She was so sympathetic and in such a caressing way that she created a temporary belief in her understanding, and it was quite imperceptibly that he was drawn into the discussion of modern ethical problems.  She herself was a rather stimulating instance of modern ethical problems.