Benham stood at the top of the stairs looking down upon them, white-faced and inexpressive. Easton dropped back a pace. For a moment no one moved nor spoke, and then very quietly Easton shut the half-door and shut out the noises of the road. For some seconds Benham regarded them, and as he did so his spirit changed.... Everything he had thought of saying and doing vanished out of his mind. He stuck his hands into his pockets and descended the staircase. When he was five or six steps above them, he spoke. “Just sit down here,” he said, with a gesture of one hand, and sat down himself upon the stairs. “DO sit down,” he said with a sudden testiness as they continued standing. “I know all about this affair. Do please sit down and let us talk.... Everybody's gone to bed long ago.” “Cheetah!” she said. “Why have you come back like this?” Then at his mute gesture she sat down at his feet. “I wish you would sit down, Easton,” he said in a voice of subdued savagery. “Why have you come back?” Sir Philip Easton found his voice to ask. “SIT down,” Benham spat, and Easton obeyed unwillingly. “I came back,” Benham went on, “to see to all this. Why else? I don't--now I see you--feel very fierce about it. But it has distressed me. You look changed, Amanda, and fagged. And your hair is untidy. It's as if something had happened to you and made you a stranger.... You two people are lovers. Very natural and simple, but I want to get out of it. Yes, I want to get out of it. That wasn't quite my idea, but now I see it is. It's queer, but on the whole I feel sorry for you. All of us, poor humans--. There's reason to be sorry for all of us. We're full of lusts and uneasiness and resentments that we haven't the will to control. What do you two people want me to do to you? Would you like a divorce, Amanda? It's the clean, straight thing, isn't it? Or would the scandal hurt you?” Amanda sat crouched together, with her eyes on Benham. “Give us a divorce,” said Easton, looking to her to confirm him. Amanda shook her head. “I don't want a divorce,” she said. “Then what do you want?” asked Benham with sudden asperity. “I don't want a divorce,” she repeated. “Why do you, after a long silence, come home like this, abruptly, with no notice?” “It was the way it took me,” said Benham, after a little interval. “You have left me for long months.” “Yes. I was angry. And it was ridiculous to be angry. I thought I wanted to kill you, and now I see you I see that all I want to do is to help you out of this miserable mess--and then get away from you. You two would like to marry. You ought to be married.” “I would die to make Amanda happy,” said Easton.