He looked at her face. Her expression was profoundly thoughtful, her eyes were fixed on the slumbering ships poised upon the transparent water under the mountain shadows. “You see,” she thought it out, “you've got to TELL in London. You can't just sneak back there. You've got to strike a note of your own. With all these things of yours.” “But how?” “There's a sort of little house, I used to see them when I was a girl and my father lived in London, about Brook Street and that part. Not too far north.... You see going back to London for us is just another adventure. We've got to capture London. We've got to scale it. We've got advantages of all sorts. But at present we're outside. We've got to march in.” Her clear hazel eyes contemplated conflicts and triumphs. She was roused by Benham's voice. “What the deuce are you thinking of, Amanda?” She turned her level eyes to his. “London,” she said. “For you.” “I don't want London,” he said. “I thought you did. You ought to. I do.” “But to take a house! Make an invasion of London!” “You dear old Cheetah, you can't be always frisking about in the wilderness, staring at the stars.” “But I'm not going back to live in London in the old way, theatres, dinner-parties, chatter--” “Oh no! We aren't going to do that sort of thing. We aren't going to join the ruck. We'll go about in holiday times all over the world. I want to see Fusiyama. I mean to swim in the South Seas. With you. We'll dodge the sharks. But all the same we shall have to have a house in London. We have to be FELT there.” She met his consternation fairly. She lifted her fine eyebrows. Her little face conveyed a protesting reasonableness. “Well, MUSTN'T we?” She added, “If we want to alter the world we ought to live in the world.” Since last they had disputed the question she had thought out these new phrases. “Amanda,” he said, “I think sometimes you haven't the remotest idea of what I am after. I don't believe you begin to suspect what I am up to.” She put her elbows on her knees, dropped her chin between her hands and regarded him impudently. She had a characteristic trick of looking up with her face downcast that never failed to soften his regard. “Look here, Cheetah, don't you give way to your early morning habit of calling your own true love a fool,” she said. “Simply I tell you I will not go back to London.” “You will go back with me, Cheetah.” “I will go back as far as my work calls me there.” “It calls you through the voice of your mate and slave and doormat to just exactly the sort of house you ought to have.... It is the privilege and duty of the female to choose the lair.” For a space Benham made no reply. This controversy had been gathering for some time and he wanted to state his view as vividly as possible. The Benham style of connubial conversation had long since decided for emphasis rather than delicacy.