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He shook his head. "They're not mites, old girl. Only Benji. And even Benji It was different when they were wee things. It's lately, all this. They don't seem to understand, Rosalie to understand what it is I want. That's the thing that troubles me.
Doda was nine when she began; Huggo, when he was home for his holidays, eleven, rising twelve; Benji only seven. They seemed to her, all of them, wonderfully old for their years and, no getting over that, different. She tried to read them the stories she used to love. They didn't like them. Doda didn't like "The Wide Wide World" and didn't like "Little Women."
She came to him and saw him wilt and crumple in his chair, and could have sworn she saw the iron of his head, that had been raven, go grey anew and greyer yet. She came to him and she said, "Harry Benji an accident not an accident on the railway killed." His voice went, not exclamatorily, but in a thick mutter, as one agrope, in sudden darkness, befogged, betrayed.
Doda was upstairs putting last touches to herself before going out to a dance. Benji was still at school, at Milchester. Harry had never resumed relations with beloved Tidborough. The door opened and Huggo walked in. His face was very flushed and his articulation a little odd.
Thus in those weeks of the coming of him that was to be Benji, solely the boy of aspect mutinous and impetuous was in her face; and when within a month stood her appointed time came an event that stiffened there that aspect, turned it, indeed, actively upon the child within her waiting deliverance.
I've noticed it a long time." "Well, I am perfectly well. If I wasn't I'd say so." Strike on! Rosalie was called up on the telephone by the foreign friend. It was the evening, about ten o'clock. Doda was away for a week at Brighton with the foreign friend. She was due back to-morrow. Harry was out with Benji. Benji was nineteen then and was home on vacation from Oxford.
I never sacrificed. Sacrifice is atonement. It now is not possible for me to atone." She was on her knees beside his chair. He stroked her hair. There was an inquest. Harry went. She stayed at home and Benji stayed with her to be with her. Benji was not to be consoled. His mood was very dreadful. A report was printed in the evening paper before Harry came home.
They had their friends, each one, and much preferred their friends. You'd not, it's true, say that of Benji; but Benji in fraternal wish had to take what was offered him and there was nothing offered him by Doda; by Huggo less than nothing. Benji! Look, here's the Benji one; the good, the quiet, gentle one; the one that never gave a thought of trouble, Benji. Her Benji!
Rosalie did her errand with the man and then came back to Harry. She had to tell Harry. He was sitting in his chair. He had an open book on his knees. She saw, as one notices these things, it was a Shakespeare. She stood up there at the door before him and she said, "Harry Benji!" He saw it in her face. He groaned.
The one that came after disfavour, after remorse; that came with tears, with thank God, charged-with-meaning tears. The littlest one. The one that was so tiny wee beside the big and sturdy others. Her last one! Her Benji! Look, there he is. Always so quiet, gentle, good. Always, though snubbed, so passionately fond of Doda. Look, there he is. He's at Milchester, in his spectacles, the darling!
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