Her voice broke. “Such a horrid mess! Such a hopeless, horrid mess!”
“It's all alike. It's your way with us. All of you. There isn't a man in the world deserves to have a woman in the world. We do all we can for you. We do all we can to amuse you, we dress for you and we talk for you. All the sweet, warm little women there are! And then you go away from us! There never was a woman yet who pleased and satisfied a man, who did not lose him. Give you everything and off you must go! Lovers, mothers....”
It dawned upon Benham dimly that his mother's troubles did not deal exclusively with himself.
“If you'd looked after her properly, it would have been right enough. Pip was as good as gold until she undermined him.... A woman can't wait about like an umbrella in a stand.... He was just a boy.... Only of course there she was--a novelty. It is perfectly easy to understand. She flattered him.... Men are such fools.”
“But she'll spend all your money, Poff! She'll break your back with debts. What's to prevent her? With him living on her! For that's what it comes to practically.”
“You aren't going back without tying her up, Poff? You ought to stop every farthing of her money--every farthing. It's your duty.”
“But have you no Shame? To let that sort of thing go on!”
“If I don't feel the Shame of it-- And I don't.”
“And that money--. I got you that money, Poff! It was my money.”
Benham stared at her perplexed. “What am I to do?” he asked.
“Cut her off, you silly boy! Tie her up! Pay her through a solicitor. Say that if she sees him ONCE again--”
“Poff!” she cried, “every time I see you, you are more and more like your father. You're going off--just as he did. That baffled, MULISH look--priggish--solemn! Oh! it's strange the stuff a poor woman has to bring into the world. But you'll do nothing. I know you'll do nothing. You'll stand everything. You--you Cuckold! And she'll drive by me, she'll pass me in theatres with the money that ought to have been mine! Oh! Oh!”
She dabbed her handkerchief from one swimming eye to the other. But she went on talking. Faster and faster, less and less coherently; more and more wildly abusive. Presently in a brief pause of the storm Benham sighed profoundly....