her. What remained to tell was--attenuated. He could not romance.
So she tried to fill in his jejune outlines. She tried to inspire a
son who seemed most unaccountably up to nothing.

"You must make good friends," she said. "Isn't young Lord Breeze at
your college? His mother the other day told me he was. And Sir
Freddy Quenton's boy. And there are both the young Baptons at
Cambridge."

He knew one of the Baptons.

"Poff," she said suddenly, "has it ever occurred to you what you are
going to do afterwards. Do you know you are going to be quite well
off?"

Benham looked up with a faint embarrassment. "My father said
something. He was rather vague. It wasn't his affair--that kind of
thing."

"You will be quite well off," she repeated, without any complicating
particulars. "You will be so well off that it will be possible for
you to do anything almost that you like in the world. Nothing will
tie you. Nothing. . . ."

"But--HOW well off?"

"You will have several thousands a year."

"Thousands?"