Through stray shots and red conflict, long tediums of strained anxiety and the physical dangers of a barbaric country staggering towards revolution, Benham went with his own love like a lamp within him and this affair of Prothero’s reflecting its light, and he was quite prepared for the most sympathetic and liberal behaviour when he came back to Moscow to make the lady’s acquaintance.  He intended to help Prothero to marry and take her back to Cambridge, and to assist by every possible means in destroying and forgetting the official yellow ticket that defined her status in Moscow.  But he reckoned without either Prothero or the young lady in this expectation.

It only got to him slowly through his political preoccupations that there were obscure obstacles to this manifest course.  Prothero hesitated; the lady expressed doubts.

On closer acquaintance her resemblance to Amanda diminished.  It was chiefly a similarity of complexion.  She had a more delicate face than Amanda, and its youthful brightness was deadened; she had none of Amanda’s glow, and she spoke her mother’s language with a pretty halting limp that was very different from Amanda’s clear decisions.

She put her case compactly.

“I would not do in Cambridge,” she said with an infinitesimal glance at Prothero.

“Mr. Benham,” she said, and her manner had the gravity of a woman of affairs, “now do you see me in Cambridge?  Now do you see me?  Kept outside the walls?  In a little datcha?  With no occupation?  Just to amuse him.”

And on another occasion when Prothero was not with her she achieved still completer lucidity.

“I would come if I thought he wanted me to come,” she said.  “But you see if I came he would not want me to come.  Because then he would have me and so he wouldn’t want me.  He would just have the trouble.  And I am not sure if I should be happy in Cambridge.  I am not sure I should be happy enough to make him happy.  It is a very learned and intelligent and charming society, of course; but here, things happen.  At Cambridge nothing happens—­there is only education.  There is no revolution in Cambridge; there are not even sinful people to be sorry for. . . .  And he says himself that Cambridge people are particular.  He says they are liberal but very, very particular, and perhaps I could not always act my part well.  Sometimes I am not always well behaved.  When there is music I behave badly sometimes, or when I am bored.  He says the Cambridge people are so liberal that they do not mind what you are, but he says they are so particular that they mind dreadfully how you are what you are. . . .  So that it comes to exactly the same thing. . . .”

“Anna Alexievna,” said Benham suddenly, “are you in love with Prothero?”

Her manner became conscientiously scientific.

“He is very kind and very generous—­too generous.  He keeps sending for more money—­hundreds of roubles, I try to prevent him.”