things, the rich young Jews perhaps not, because acquisition is
their principle, but for most other intelligent inheritors there
must be this twinge of conscientious doubt. "Why particularly am I
picked out for so tremendous an advantage?" If the riddle is not
Nolan, then it is rent, or it is the social mischief of the
business, or the particular speculative COUP that established their
fortune.

"PECUNIA NON OLET," Benham wrote, "and it is just as well. Or the
west-ends of the world would reek with deodorizers. Restitution is
inconceivable; how and to whom? And in the meanwhile here we are
lifted up by our advantage to a fantastic appearance of opportunity.
Whether the world looks to us or not to do tremendous things, it
ought to look to us. And above all we ought to look to ourselves.
RICHESSE OBLIGE."



3


It is not to be supposed that Benham came to town only with a
general theory of aristocracy. He had made plans for a career.
Indeed, he had plans for several careers. None of them when brought
into contrast with the great spectacle of London retained all the
attractiveness that had saturated them at their inception.

They were all more or less political careers. Whatever a democratic
man may be, Prothero and he had decided that an aristocratic man is
a public man. He is made and protected in what he is by laws and