dy a little worn, made her seem at times anything
but respectable. He had met her first one evening at Jimmy Gluckstein's
when he was forming his opinion of Art. Her manifest want of interest
in pictures had attracted him. And that had led to music. And to the
mention of a Clementi piano, that short, gentle, sad, old, little sort
of piano people will insist upon calling a spinet, in her flat.

And so to this....

It was very wonderful and delicious, this first indulgence of sense.

It was shabby and underhand.

The great god Pan is a glorious god. (And so was Swinburne.) And what
can compare with the warmth of blood and the sheen of sunlit limbs?

But Priapus....

She was the most subtle, delightful and tender of created beings.

She had amazing streaks of vulgarity.

And some astonishing friends.

Once she had seemed to lead the talk deliberately to money matters.

She loved him and desired him. There was no doubt of it.

There was a curious effect about her as though when she went round the
corner she would become somebody else. And a curious recurrent feeling
that round the corner there was somebody else.

He had an extraordinary feeling that his mother knew about this
business. This feeling came from nothing in her words or acts, but from
some indefinable change in her eyes and bearing towards him. But how
could she know?

It was unlikely that she and Mrs. Skelmersdale would ever meet, and it
seemed to him that it would be a particularly offensive incident for
them to meet.

There were times now when life took on a grey and boring quality such
as it had never had before he met Mrs. Skelmersdale, and the only
remedy was to go to her. She could restore his nervous tranquillity, his
feeling of solidity and reality, his pride in himself. For a time, that
is.

Nevertheless his mind was as a whole pervaded by the feeling that he
ought not to have been taken by surprise.

And he had the clearest conviction in his mind that if now he could be
put back again to the day before that lunch....

No! he should not have gone there to lunch.

He had gone there to see her Clementi piano.

Had he or had he not thought beforehand of any other possibility?

On a point so vital his memory was curiously unsure.

8

The worry and disorganization of Benham's life and thoughts increased as
the spring advanced. His need in some way to pull things together became
overpowering. He began to think of Billy Proth