The Colonel was not alone in his hostility to Ben's decision. Most of the family, indeed, expressed disapproval, which is a word that was, I suspect, originally coined for no other purpose than to describe the attitude of people to any novel or independent action on the part of any of their relations, the younger ones in particular.

Ben's eldest sister, Alicia, who had settled with her two children, Paul and Timothy, at Hove, after her husband, Bertrand, was killed in the war, came hurrying up to add her voice to the attacking chorus; but she was not as wholehearted as her father, because, never in favour of his second marriage, she was glad that Ben had left Hyde Park Gardens. That now, she agreed, was Belle's domain, and beyond keeping an eye on certain pieces of furniture and a picture or so which she had marked down as some day to be her children's, she intended to have no more interest in it. But it was not in the least her idea that Ben should live with Melanie Ames and start out on a career of her own. Alicia's idea was that Ben should join her at Hove and help with the boys; and she put her case strongly.

"Of course it's what you ought to do," she said. "They would be good for you and you would be good for them. They ought to see somebody else besides me, now that their poor father has passed over, and the more you have to do with children now, the better you will understand them when you have some of your own. For I suppose you intend to marry," she added sharply. "You haven't got all this absurd modern girl's dislike of men as anything but tennis and dancing partners?"

Ben said that at the moment she was thinking not of men but of her livelihood.

"Nonsense," said Alicia. "You know perfectly well you are doing it purely from selfishness. You are excited about going into business just as other girls would be excited about their coming out. It's sheer self-indulgence. And you don't need the money," she went on; "you have grandmamma's two hundred, or whatever it is, and if you lived sensibly with me and put it into the common stock you would have no anxieties whatever. I am sure Bertrand would have wished it. In fact, I happen to know that he does wish it. I asked him last night."

Ben opened her eyes. "What can you mean?" she asked, "by saying that you know he wishes it, and that you asked him last night—when he's dead?"

"I don't think of Bertrand as dead," said Alicia. "There is no death. He has merely passed over. I am in constant communication with him. I am very psychic; strangely so, considering what a matter-of-fact family we are. A throwback, I suppose." She closed her eyes. "Would you go against Bertrand's express desire?" she asked earnestly.

"I don't know," said Ben, "but in any case I should rather have it expressed to me direct."

"And so you shall if you will come to Hove," Alicia replied eagerly. "There is a Circle there which you shall join. Not that I have to call in any medium myself; I am too psychic. And Bertrand and I are one, as we always have been. But it would be necessary for you."

"No," said Ben. "I should be afraid. I don't like that kind of thing. And it's too late anyhow."

"I think you're horridly selfish," said Alicia. "And speaking as your elder sister, almost old enough to be your mother, I want you to know that I don't think you ought to be running a business at all. It's not nice. The kind of women who run businesses are not nice; they're hard and they've usually had a past. You will acquit me of narrow-mindedness, I am sure, but that's how I feel. And I don't believe it's too late to get out of the agreement, if you've signed one. Considering the way most house-agents behave, I think it's one's duty to get out of agreements now and then, just as a lesson to them."

"My dear Alicia!" Ben exclaimed.

"Well, I do," Alicia replied petulantly. "And as for poor Bertrand, he'll be heartbroken. He had built all his hopes on your joining us at Hove."

"Is he in Hove too?" Ben asked.

"Practically," said Alicia.

"No," said Ben; "I can't come; it's impossible."

"And then there's your health," said Alicia. "You'll lose your complexion poring over registers and accounts in London. You'll begin to look raddled; like all women in business. People will call you 'capable,' and that's the end. No one wants a capable woman, out of her office."

Ben only laughed.

"And Hove's so invigorating," Alicia resumed. "The Sea Wall! And haven't you any interest in your nephews? You were fond of Bertrand, weren't you? You always seemed to be. Are you going to neglect his boys? Ben, dear, I thought better of you."

Alicia sighed and looked like one against whom the whole world was arrayed.

"You're making me feel very guilty," Ben said. "But it's no good. I can't change now. And I believe—if this is selfishness—that a certain amount of selfishness is right. I am sure that one ought to try to be independent; everyone ought. And why shouldn't it be called 'self-help' or 'self-reliance' which are considered virtues, instead of 'selfishness'? Anyway, I must go on with it now. If it fails, I may change my views altogether, or, of course, if anything happened to you, and Paul and Timothy were left stranded, I might think it was my duty to come to the rescue. But not now."

Alicia made a noise as of one who would live for ever.

"Besides," Ben went on, "it would only mean for a short time probably. You're not so settled as all that. Supposing you were to marry again."

"Ben!" exclaimed Alicia, "I'm shocked at you."

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," said Ben. "But people do marry again. Look—well, look at father."

"I decline to look at father," said Alicia. "I think it's horrid. At his age too."

"Well, then," said Ben, "look at Belle. She's not so very much older than you."

"I think that's almost more horrid," said Alicia. "And it's very cruel of you, I think, to say such a thing to me, knowing as you do how devoted Bertrand and I always were and still are. And the boys, too! What man wants to marry a widow with two boys?"

"I feel convinced that it has been done," said Ben. "But I apologize. And I am very sorry, but I must repeat that I am going to be independent; I want to stand absolutely alone. I think it's my duty."

"I'm tired of the way people use the word 'duty' when they want to please themselves," said Alicia.

"My dear Alicia," said Ben, "don't let's start all over again. You said that before. If you knew what efforts I make not to say things twice in one conversation!"

Alicia compressed her lips with grim firmness. "Very well," she said. "There's no more to be done. But it will be terrible telling Bertrand."

"Surely," Ben suggested, "he knows already?"

"Ah, that I cannot say," said Alicia. "All I know is, he counts on me for everything."