“And she’s in the way?”

He assented.

“You men!” said Lady Marayne after a little pause.  “What queer beasts you are!  Here is a woman who is kind to you.  She’s fond of you.  I could tell she’s fond of you directly I heard her.  And you amuse yourself with her.  And then it’s Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, Great Work, Hands Clear, Big Business of the World.  Why couldn’t you think of that before, Poff?  Why did you begin with her?”

“It was unexpected. . . .”

“Stuff!” said Lady Marayne for a second time.  “Well,” she said, “well.  Your Mrs. Fly-by-Night,—­oh it doesn’t matter!—­whatever she calls herself, must look after herself.  I can’t do anything for her.  I’m not supposed even to know about her.  I daresay she’ll find her consolations.  I suppose you want to go out of London and get away from it all.  I can help you there, perhaps.  I’m tired of London too.  It’s been a tiresome season.  Oh! tiresome and disappointing!  I want to go over to Ireland and travel about a little.  The Pothercareys want us to come.  They’ve asked us twice. . . .”

Benham braced himself to face fresh difficulties.  It was amazing how different the world could look from his mother’s little parlour and from the crest of the North Downs.

“But I want to start round the world,” he cried with a note of acute distress.  “I want to go to Egypt and India and see what is happening in the East, all this wonderful waking up of the East, I know nothing of the way the world is going—­ . . .”

“India!” cried Lady Marayne.  “The East.  Poff, what is the matter with you?  Has something happened—­something else?  Have you been having a love affair? —­a real love affair?”

“Oh, damn love affairs!” cried Benham.  “Mother!—­I’m sorry, mother!  But don’t you see there’s other things in the world for a man than having a good time and making love.  I’m for something else than that.  You’ve given me the splendidest time—­ . . .”

“I see,” cried Lady Marayne, “I see.  I’ve bored you.  I might have known I should have bored you.”

“You’ve not bored me!” cried Benham.

He threw himself on the rug at her feet.  “Oh, mother!” he said, “little, dear, gallant mother, don’t make life too hard for me.  I’ve got to do my job, I’ve got to find my job.”

“I’ve bored you,” she wept.

Suddenly she was weeping with all the unconcealed distressing grief of a disappointed child.  She put her pretty be-ringed little hands in front of her face and recited the accumulation of her woes.

“I’ve done all I can for you, planned for you, given all my time for you and I’ve bored you.”

“Mother!”

“Don’t come near me, Poff!  Don’t touch me!  All my plans.  All my ambitions.  Friends—­every one.  You don’t know all I’ve given up for you. . . .”

He had never seen his mother weep before.  Her self-abandonment amazed him.  Her words were distorted by her tears.  It was the most terrible and distressing of crises. . . .