She became sick with desire for the forests of Brazil, and the Pacific,
and--a peak in Darien. Immediately the school was frowsty beyond
endurance, and for the first time she let herself perceive how
dreadfully a gentleman and a scholar can smell of pipes and tobacco.
Only one course lay open to a woman of spirit....

For a year she did indeed live like a woman of spirit, and it was at
Nolan's bedside that Marayne was first moved to admiration. She was
plucky. All men love a plucky woman.

Sir Godfrey Marayne smelt a good deal of antiseptic soap, but he talked
in a way that amused her, and he trusted as well as adored her. She did
what she liked with his money, her own money, and her son's trust money,
and she did very well. From the earliest Benham's visits were to a
gracious presence amidst wealthy surroundings. The transit from the
moral blamelessness of Seagate had an entirely misleading effect of
ascent.

Their earlier encounters became rather misty in his memory; they
occurred at various hotels in Seagate. Afterwards he would go, first
taken by a governess, and later going alone, to Charing Cross, where he
would be met, in earlier times by a maid and afterwards by a deferential
manservant who called him "Sir," and conveyed, sometimes in a hansom cab
and later in a smart brougham, by Trafalgar Square, Lower Regent Street,
Piccadilly, and streets of increasing wealth and sublimity to Sir
Godfrey's house in Desborough Street. Very naturally he fell into
thinking of these discreet and well-governed West End streets as a part
of his mother's atmosphere.

The house had a dignified portico, and always before he had got down
to the pavement the door opened agreeably and a second respectful
manservant stood ready. Then came the large hall, with its noiseless
carpets and great Chinese jars, its lacquered cabinets and the wide
staircase, and floating down the wide staircase, impatient to greet him,
light and shining as a flower petal, sweet and welcoming, radiating a
joyfulness as cool and clear as a dewy morning, came his mother. "WELL,
little man, my son," she would cry in her happy singing voice, "WELL?"

So he thought she must always be, but indeed these meetings meant very
much to her, she dressed for them and staged them, she perceived the
bright advantages of her rarity and she was quite determined to have
her son when the time came to possess him. She kissed him but not
oppressively, she caressed him cleverly; i