“I've no doubt,” he said, “that my wife has every reason to be grateful for your attentions.”
In the little pause that followed Benham had a feeling that Sir Philip was engendering something still more personal. If so, he might be constrained to invert very gently but very firmly the bowl of chrysanthemums over Sir Philip's head, or kick him in an improving manner. He had a ridiculous belief that Sir Philip would probably take anything of the sort very touchingly. He scrambled in his mind for some remark that would avert this possibility.
“Have you ever been in Russia?” he asked hastily. “It is the most wonderful country in Europe. I had an odd adventure near Kiev. During a pogrom.”
And he drowned the developing situation in a flood of description....
But it was not so easy to drown the little things that were presently thrown out by Lady Marayne. They were so much more in the air....
18
Sir Philip suddenly got out of the picture even as Benham had foreseen.
“Easton has gone away,” he remarked three days later to Amanda.
“I told him to go. He is a bore with you about. But otherwise he is rather a comfort, Cheetah.” She meditated upon Sir Philip. “And he's an HONOURABLE man,” she said. “He's safe....”
19