“Mrs. Skelmersdale,” he said after a little pause.
“It's all the same. Who is she?”
“She's a woman I met at a studio somewhere, and I went with her to one of those Dolmetsch concerts.”
He stopped.
Lady Marayne considered him in silence for a little while. “All men,” she said at last, “are alike. Husbands, sons and brothers, they are all alike. Sons! One expects them to be different. They aren't different. Why should they be? I suppose I ought to be shocked, Poff. But I'm not. She seems to be very fond of you.”
“She's—she's very good—in her way. She's had a difficult life....”
“You can't leave a man about for a moment,” Lady Marayne reflected. “Poff, I wish you'd fetch me a glass of water.”
When he returned she was looking very fixedly into the fire. “Put it down,” she said, “anywhere. Poff! is this Mrs. Helter-Skelter a discreet sort of woman? Do you like her?” She asked a few additional particulars and Benham made his grudging admission of facts. “What I still don't understand, Poff, is why you have been away.”
“I went away,” said Benham, “because I want to clear things up.”
“But why? Is there some one else?”