"Please stop," said Ben, in mock despair. "You're too resourceful. And what do you think," she asked, turning to me, "shall we call it 'The Beck and Call'?"
"I think that's admirable," I said. "I wish I'd thought of it."
When Colonel Staveley, with his buxom Belle, returned from Cap d'Ail and found no daughter to receive him, he was bewildered and shocked.
Still, as everything was comfortable and the servants were welcoming and kind, and even more because it is not so simple or desirable to lose one's temper in the presence of second wives as first, the Colonel controlled himself; but when Ben called, he relaxed.
"I can't conceive why you aren't satisfied to go on here," he began. "Your mo--I mean Belle--would be delighted to have you. She likes you, I know. She's said so, often. She said so again only last night. And you like her, don't you?"
"Yes," said Ben. "I do. But I don't think this is the place for me any longer. So long as you were alone I was glad to do what I could; but you've got Belle now. It's her house. It wouldn't be right--apart from anything else--for me to live here now. I can't think why you don't see that."
"She doesn't understand the servants as you did," said the Colonel. "She--she doesn't understand me. Those sandwiches you used to cut me at eleven--no one gets me those any more. I mean, not as they ought to be: thin and soft and without crust."
"Sorry!" exclaimed the Colonel. "Sorry is as sorry does. If you really were sorry you'd come back. Where are you pigging it, may I ask?"
"I'm sharing Melanie Ames's flat in Aubrey Walk," said Ben. "It comes far cheaper and there's plenty of room. And as soon as I can"--here she produced the bombshell--"I'm going to open a business."
For an old warrior the Colonel took the blow badly. He had no words at all at first. "Business!" he then gasped; "what business?"
To his growing exasperation Ben told him our plans.
"Oh! he's in it," said her father, referring to my own modest financial share, and adding, if I know anything about him, "I never cared for the man, as you are probably aware."
He stamped up and down the room for a while and then began again.
"I'm not narrow-minded, thank God!" he declared. "Whatever else I may be, I'm not narrow-minded; but I'm bound to say I don't think it's quite fair to me to open an office of this sort. If you were taking up the secretaryship of a ladies' golf club I shouldn't mind. I'm all for women playing golf, so long as they have links of their own. Or a secretaryship to an M.P., say, as long as it wasn't a damned Labour member. But an office with a brass plate and your name--my name--on it, no! I draw the line there."