"Conscription between your father and Benyon over Sybil's body," he murmured, disentangling the conversations. "Needlework Guild between the guv'nor and Mrs. Nares. Poor old guv'nor.… V.A.D. training between mother and the vicar. 'Naval Occasions' between your mother and Geoff. D'you ever feel you'd like to stir all this up with a pole, Agnes? We're too far from the coast for an air-raid.… And, if you had one, no one would ever talk about anything else for the rest of his life; it would be like the Famine in Ireland or the Wesley descent on Cornwall." A maid, squeezing through the inadequate fairway behind the chairs, bumped Eric's back and made him spill his wine. "This place gets on my nerves!" he added irritably.
Out of the corner of her eye Agnes looked at his mobile, discontented face and crumbled her bread in silence for a moment.
"Don't give up coming here altogether," she pleaded.
Eric sipped his wine thoughtfully and avoided her eyes. Here was an opportunity, had he cared to take it, for opening up a greater intimacy with Agnes; but his mind was unconcentrated and he did not know what he wanted.
"I suppose I shall come down from time to time," he answered vaguely.
"I've been so looking forward to hearing about all you've been doing. We don't make much history in Lashmar."
It was common ground between them that the Warings lacked money for her to live as independently as all Warings felt that every Waring had a right to live. Each generation of younger brothers had been confined within an ever-narrowing circle; and, but for the war, Jack would now be patiently going the North Eastern Circuit, the first Waring to apply his mind to law; but for Jack and the money spent on him at Oxford, Agnes would have gone to Newnham and prepared a career for herself.
"You're too good for this place, you're wasted," Eric broke out after a moment's silent brooding.
"There's not much choice, is there?"
Eric brooded again.