Part 31

“What I wanted to think about was what I should do with my life.”

“Haven't you any WORK--?” asked the elder cousin.

“None that I'm obliged to do.”

“That's where a man has the advantage,” said Amanda with the tone of profound reflection. “You can choose. And what are you going to do with your life?”

“Amanda,” her mother protested, “really you mustn't!”

“I'm going round the world to think about it,” Benham told her.

“I'd give my soul to travel,” said Amanda.

She addressed her remark to the salad in front of her.

“But have you no ties?” asked Mrs. Wilder.

“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.”

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.

Under cross-examination Mr. Rathbone-Sanders became entangled and prophetic. It was evident he had never thought out his “democratic,” he had rested in some vague tangle of idealism from which Benham now set himself with the zeal of a specialist to rout him. Such an argument sprang up as one meets with rarely beyond the happy undergraduate's range. Everybody lived in the discussion, even Amanda's mother listened visibly. Betty said she herself was certainly democratic and Mrs. Wilder had always thought herself to be so, and outside the circle round the fire Amanda hovered impatiently, not quite sure of her side as yet, but eager to come down with emphasis at the first flash of intimation.

She came down vehemently on Benham's.

And being a very clear-cutting personality with an instinct for the material rendering of things, she also came and sat beside him on the little square-cornered sofa.

“Of course, Mr. Rathbone-Sanders,” she said, “of course the world must belong to the people who dare. Of course people aren't all alike, and dull people, as Mr. Benham says, and spiteful people, and narrow people have no right to any voice at all in things....”