“None that hold me,” said Benham.  “I’m one of those unfortunates who needn’t do anything at all.  I’m independent.  You see my riddles.  East and west and north and south, it’s all my way for the taking.  There’s not an indication.”

“If I were you,” said Amanda, and reflected.  Then she half turned herself to him.  “I should go first to India,” she said, “and I should shoot, one, two, three, yes, three tigers.  And then I would see Farukhabad Sikri—­I was reading in a book about it yesterday—­ where the jungle grows in the palaces; and then I would go right up the Himalayas, and then, then I would have a walking tour in Japan, and then I would sail in a sailing ship down to Borneo and Java and set myself up as a Ranee—­ . . .  And then I would think what I would do next.”

“All alone, Amanda?” asked Mrs. Wilder.

“Only when I shoot tigers.  You and mother should certainly come to Japan.”

“But Mr. Benham perhaps doesn’t intend to shoot tigers, Amanda?” said Amanda’s mother.

“Not at once.  My way will be a little different.  I think I shall go first through Germany.  And then down to Constantinople.  And then I’ve some idea of getting across Asia Minor and Persia to India.  That would take some time.  One must ride.”

“Asia Minor ought to be fun,” said Amanda.  “But I should prefer India because of the tigers.  It would be so jolly to begin with the tigers right away.”

“It is the towns and governments and peoples I want to see rather than tigers,” said Benham.  “Tigers if they are in the programme.  But I want to find out about—­other things.”

“Don’t you think there’s something to be found out at home?” said the elder cousin, blushing very brightly and speaking with the effort of one who speaks for conscience’ sake.

“Betty’s a Socialist,” Amanda said to Benham with a suspicion of apology.

“Well, we’re all rather that,” Mrs. Wilder protested.

“If you are free, if you are independent, then don’t you owe something to the workers?” Betty went on, getting graver and redder with each word.

“It’s just because of that,” said Benham, “that I am going round the world.”

3

He was as free with these odd people as if he had been talking to Prothero.  They were—­alert.  And he had been alone and silent and full of thinking for two clear days.  He tried to explain why he found Socialism at once obvious and inadequate. . . .

Presently the supper things got themselves put away and the talk moved into a smaller room with several armchairs and a fire.  Mrs. Wilder and the cousins and Amanda each smoked a cigarette as if it were symbolical, and they were joined by a grave grey-bearded man with a hyphenated name and slightly Socratic manner, dressed in a very blue linen shirt and collar, a very woolly mustard-coloured suit and loose tie, and manifestly devoted to one of those branches of exemplary domestic decoration that grow upon Socialist soil in England.  He joined Betty in the opinion that the duty of a free and wealthy young man was to remain in England and give himself to democratic Socialism and the abolition of “profiteering.”  “Consider that chair,” he said.  But Benham had little feeling for the craftsmanship of chairs.