ield
its choicest bloom to her. She had an instinct for choiceness like a
hummingbird, darting here and there for sweetness. Her flutterings were
never of uncertainty but such as kept her in the perfect airy poise. If
she wanted marriage for Peter it was because she could imagine nothing
better for anybody than a marriage like hers, and if she chose this
time for letting him know that she was thinking of it, it was because in
those terms she could bring closest to him his new-found possibilities.
If she could have reached Peter with the personal certainty of riches by
explaining to him how far his dollars would stretch end to end, or how
many acres of postage stamps he could buy with them, she might have
thought less of him on that account, but she would have helped him to
understanding even on those terms. You couldn't have made Clarice
Lessing believe that whatever their limitations, people weren't entitled
to help simply because they needed it.

It had come upon Peter by leaps and bounds during the last two or three
years, both the wealth and the necessity of putting it to himself in
terms of personal expression. During the first ten years of the
partnership, the only use for money the simple needs of Ellen and
himself had established was to put it back into the business; a use
which had become almost an obligation during the time when both children
and opportunity were coming to Julian faster than the cash to meet them.
It was due to the high ground that Clarice had made for them all out of
what she and the children stood for, that Peter's superior cash
contribution to the firm had become a privilege. They had had, he and
Ellen, their stringent occasions; it had been Clarice's part to see that
since they endured the pinch of poverty they should at least get
something human out of it. It came out for Peter pleasantly as he walked
home through the mild June evening, just how much they had had. Much,
much more than they would have been able to buy with the money they
might in strict equity have withdrawn from the business. Nothing, he had
long admitted, that he could have purchased for his sister would have
been so satisfying as what Clarice contributed, pressing the full cup of
her motherhood to Ellen's thirsty lips. They might have grown sleek, he
and Ellen, without exceeding a proper ratio of expenditure, and if in
the end they had been a little less rich, they would still have had
enough to go on being sleek and co