Miss Benham

“ Benham was excited that night, but not in the proper bright-eyed, red-cheeked way; he did not dance down the village street of Harting to his harbour at the Ship, and the expression in his eyes as he sat on the edge of his bed was not the deep elemental wonder one could have wished there, but amazement. Do not suppose that he did not love Amanda, that a rich majority of his being was not triumphantly glad to have won her, that the image of the two armour-clad lovers was not still striding and flourishing through the lit wilderness of his imagination. ”

“ Most women when they return from a long evening out look more or less the worse for it--deadened eyes, pale cheeks, loosened coiffure tell their inevitable tale. Miss Benham looked as if she had just come from the hands of a very excellent maid. She looked as freshly soignée as she might have looked at eight that evening instead of at one. Not a wave of her perfectly undulated hair was loosened or displaced, not a fold of the lace at her breast had departed from its perfect arrangement.
"It is odd," said old David Stewart, "your taking a fancy to young Ste. Marie. ”

“ We went to the wretched place by accident after dinner. Ste. Marie saw those childish lunatics at play, and for about two minutes he played with them. The lady in the blue hat made it appear a little more extreme, and that's all."
Miss Benham rose to her feet and moved restlessly back and forth.
"Oh, Richard!" she said, "the golden spell is broken—the enchantment he laid upon me that day. I'm not like him, you know. Oh, I wish I were! I wish I were! I can't change from hour to hour. I can't rise to the clouds again after my fall to earth. It has all—become something different. ”

“ As Benham grew to look manly and bear himself with pride, his mother's affection for him blossomed into a passion. She made him come down to London from Cambridge as often as she could; she went about with him; she made him squire her to theatres and take her out to dinners and sup with her at the Carlton, and in the summer she had him with her at Chexington Manor, the Hertfordshire house Sir Godfrey had given her. ”

“ She spoke as if the words involved no personal question at all, but there was a little smile at her lips, and Arthur Benham turned towards her quickly and caught at her hands.
"No, no!" he cried. "I didn't mean that. You know I didn't mean that. You're worth nine years' waiting. You're the best, d'you hear? the best there is. There's nobody anywhere that can touch you. Only—well, this place is getting on my nerves. It's got me worn to a frazzle. I feel like a criminal doing time."
"You came very near having to do time somewhere else," said the girl. ”

“ Then Jeremy told what was very like an audacious lie.
"Miss Benham—Cousin Jasper will very shortly be married. And I am glad—because of the woman he will marry. Honour is concerned in it, even his very life. He is in great danger. One careless word may wreck everything."
Rose was white, furious, and astonished.
"To be married! And all this wild talk——?"
"My dear Miss Benham, sometimes two men desire to marry the same woman. It is not unusual. And one of the men may be desperate and unprincipled. The unprincipled man may take advantage of the other's sense of honour." ”

“ Miss Benham was talking wearily to a strange fair youth with an impediment in his speech, and was wondering why the youth had been asked to this house, where in general one was sure of meeting only interesting people, when some one spoke her name, and she turned with a little sigh of relief. It was Baron de Vries, the Belgian First Secretary of Legation, an old friend of her grandfather's, a man made gentle and sweet by infinite sorrow. He bowed civilly to the fair youth and bent over the girl's hand.
"It is very good," he said, "to see you again in the world. We have need of you, nous autres. ”

“ You might have found out too late what sort of a woman she is."
Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain, and say that Miss Benham had been quite right in what she said, but the old gentleman only waved an impatient arm to him; and presently, when he saw the valet making signs across the bed, and saw that his host was really in a state of complete exhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieux and got away.
Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting almost silent during the interview, followed him out of the room, and closed the door behind them. For the first time Ste. ”

“ His determination to serve Amanda at any price, to bear the grossest humiliations and slights for her, his humility, his service and tenderness, his care for her moods and happiness, seemed to Benham a treachery to human nobility. That rage against Easton was like the rage of a trade-unionist against a blackleg. Are all the women to fall to the men who will be their master-slaves and keepers? But it was not simply that Benham felt men must be freed from this incessant attendance; women too must free themselves from their almost instinctive demand for an attendant.... ”

“ Miss Benham greeted him with evident pleasure, and to his great delight remembered just how he liked his tea—three pieces of sugar and no milk. It always flatters a man when his little tastes of this sort are remembered. The four fell at once into conversation together, and the young American lady asked Hartley why Ste. Marie was not with him.
"I thought you two always went about together," she said. "Were never seen apart and all that—a sort of modern Damon and Phidias." Hartley caught Baron de Vries' eye and looked away again hastily. ”

“ The urgency of getting away from something dominated Benham to the exclusion of any thought of what he might be getting to. That muddle of his London life had to be left behind. First, escape....
Over the downs great numbers of larks were singing. It was warm April that year and early. All the cloud stuff in the sky was gathered into great towering slow-sailing masses, and the rest was blue of the intensest. The air was so clean that Benham felt it clean in the substance of his body. ”

“ Every woman knows when a certain thing is going to be said to her, and usually she is prepared for it, though usually, also, she says she is not. Miss Benham knew what was coming now, and she was frightened, not of Ste. Marie, but of herself. It meant so very much to her--more than to most women at such a time. It meant, if she said yes to him, the surrender of almost all the things she had cared for and hoped for. It meant the giving up of that career which old David Stewart had dwelt upon a month ago. ”

“ She had dressed for that morning's encounter in a very becoming and intimate wrap of soft mauve and white silk, and she had washed and dried her dark hair so that it was a vapour about her face. She set herself with a single mind to persuade herself and Benham that they were inseparable lovers, and she would not be deflected by his grim determination to discuss the conditions of their separation. When he asked her whether she wanted a divorce, she offered to throw over Sir Philip and banish him for ever as lightly as a great lady might sacrifice an objectionable poodle to her connubial peace. ”

“ Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something when I've led you to the place where food is. And, by-the-way, what are we waiting for? Are we not all here? There's an even number." He broke off with a sudden exclamation of pleasure; and when Miss Benham turned to look, she found that Baron de Vries, who had been talking to some friends, had once more come up to where she stood. ”

“ She was turning it over, when Jimmy said, with a certain quick, sharp note in his voice,—
"I hope you'll excuse my cousin, Miss Benham; she has been so used to handling her own violin carelessly she forgets that other people may feel differently with regard to their instruments; and—"
"Jimmy is as cross as two sticks this morning, Hope; he's done nothing but lecture me ever since he came in," Dolly declared airily; but at the same moment she gave the violin back into its owner's hands, to the owner's great relief, who could not help glancing gratefully at Jimmy as she received it. ”

“ Dering came up with that pretty manner, and said that she was always glad to meet one of Miss Marr's girls, Jimmy breathed easier; and when she asked Hope if she was fond of music, and Dolly burst out, "Fond? You wouldn't ask that question if you could hear Hope play the violin," Jimmy took courage and said,—
"Mother, if Miss Benham would only come to our Monday night musicale!"
"Yes, to be sure," cried Mrs. Dering, delighted at the suggestion. If Hope was a musical genius, she might perhaps be interested to help them, for the musicale was for a charity. ”

“ Already when Benham came to London he had begun to dream of possibilities that went beyond the accidental states and empires of to-day. Prothero's mind, replete with historical detail, could find nothing but absurdity in the alliances and dynasties and loyalties of our time. “Patched up things, Benham, temporary, pretentious. All very well for the undignified man, the democratic man, to take shelter under, all very well for the humourist to grin and bear, all very well for the crowd and the quack, but not for the aristocrat—No!—his mind cuts like steel and burns like fire. ”

“ But there was no arresting this last outbreak of Benham's all too impatient kingship. He pushed aside a ducking German waiter who was peeping through the glass doors, and rushed out of the hotel. With a gesture of authority he ran forward into the middle of the street, holding up his hand, in which he still held his dinner napkin clenched like a bomb. White believes firmly that Benham thought he would be able to dominate everything. ”

“ He surveyed his friend's thoughtful attitude. “I'm getting to hate women, Benham. I'm beginning now to understand the bitterness of spinsters against men. I'm beginning to grasp the unkindliness of priests. The perpetual denial. To you, happily married, a woman is just a human being. You can talk to her, like her, you can even admire her calmly; you've got, you see, no grudge against her....”
He sat down abruptly.
Benham, upon the hearthrug before the empty fireplace, considered him.
“Billy! this is delusion,” he said. “What's come over you?”
“I'm telling you,” said Prothero. ”

“ Young Arthur Benham appeared to be giving tongue to a rather sharp attack of homesickness. It may be that long confinement within the walls of La Lierre was beginning to try him somewhat.
"Mind you," he declared, as Ste. Marie's ears came once more within range, "mind you, I'm not saying that Paris hasn't got its points. It has. Oh yes! And so has London, and so has Ostend, and so has Monte Carlo—Verree much so!—I like Paris. I like the theatres and the vaudeville shows in the Champs Elysées, and I like Longchamps. I like the boys who hang around Henry's bar. ”

“ Ste. Marie stared for an instant uncomprehending. Then he saw.
"Yes," he said gently. "Everything is all right." It was plain that the Englishman did not know of Miss Benham's decision. He was incapable of deceit. Ste. Marie threw an arm over his friend's shoulder, and went with him a little way towards the drawing-room.
"Go in there," he said. "You'll find some one glad to see you, I think. And remember that I said everything is all right." He came back after he had turned away, and met Hartley's puzzled frown with a smile.
"If you've that motor here, may I use it?" he asked. ”

“ No graceful but galling attitude of superiority, no polite indifference to her soul-hunger, no disposition to criticise. And yet he was no less voluble, clever, and spirited than Mrs. Taylor. She listened with wrapt interest to his easy talk, which was ever grave in tone, despite his pleasant sallies. He spoke of Benham with quick appreciation of its bustling energy, and let her see that he divined its capacity for greatness. This led him to refer with kindling eyes to the keen impulse toward education and culture which was animating the younger men and women of the country ”

“ For some persons romance dwells in the new and the unusual, and for other persons it dwells not at all. Certain of Rosalind Benham’s friends would have been able to see nothing but the crudities and squalor of Manti, viewing it as Miss Benham did, from one of the windows of her father’s private car, which early that morning had been shunted upon a switch at the outskirts of town. ”

“ The following year he was a ballad singer with Cohan and Harris’ Minstrels, and in 1909 he began his second season with that company, playing an end, working in a big song and dance number and in the after-piece.
Mr. Benham is an accomplished dancer and possesses a pleasing tenor voice.
As a composer he has won conspicuous success, some of his best compositions being “I’m Happy When the Band Plays Dixie,” “My Little Rose of Killarney,” “Mandy,” “May Moon” and “I Can’t Think of Anything That’s Half As Sweet as You,” the latter by all odds having one of the sweetest refrains heard in years. ”

“ The European world says she is cold, and that may be true; but it is well enough known that she can love very deeply. It says that, like most queens, and for precisely the same set of reasons, she later on makes a bad mother; but it is easy to point to queens who are the best of mothers. In short, she remains an enigma, and, like all other enigmas, forever fascinating.
Miss Benham reflected that she knew almost nothing about Ste. Marie save for his reputation as a carpet knight, and Baron de Vries' good opinion, which could not be despised. ”