She stood in the dusk in a window that looked out upon the park, and she was now so intent upon her purpose as to be still and self-forgetful; she was dressed in a dinner-dress of white and pale green, that set off her slim erect body and the strong clear lines of her neck and shoulders very beautifully, some greenish stones caught a light from without and flashed soft whispering gleams from amidst the misty darkness of her hair.  She was going to Lady Marayne and the opera, and he was bound for a dinner at the House with some young Liberals at which he was to meet two representative Indians with a grievance from Bengal.  Husband and wife had but a few moments together.  She asked about his company and he told her.

“They will tell you about India.”

“Yes.”

She stood for a moment looking out across the lights and the dark green trees, and then she turned to him.

“Why cannot I come with you?” she asked with sudden passion.  “Why cannot I see the things you want to see?”

“I tell you you are not interested.  You would only be interested through me.  That would not help me.  I should just be dealing out my premature ideas to you.  If you cared as I care, if you wanted to know as I want to know, it would be different.  But you don’t.  It isn’t your fault that you don’t.  It happens so.  And there is no good in forced interest, in prescribed discovery.”

“Cheetah,” she asked, “what is it that you want to know—­that I don’t care for?”

“I want to know about the world.  I want to rule the world.”

“So do I.”

“No, you want to have the world.”

“Isn’t it the same?”

“No.  You’re a greedier thing than I am, you Black Leopard you—­ standing there in the dusk.  You’re a stronger thing.  Don’t you know you’re stronger?  When I am with you, you carry your point, because you are more concentrated, more definite, less scrupulous.  When you run beside me you push me out of my path. . . .  You’ve made me afraid of you. . . .  And so I won’t go with you, Leopard.  I go alone.  It isn’t because I don’t love you.  I love you too well.  It isn’t because you aren’t beautiful and wonderful. . . .”

“But, Cheetah! nevertheless you care more for this that you want than you care for me.”

Benham thought of it.  “I suppose I do,” he said.

“What is it that you want?  Still I don’t understand.”

Her voice had the break of one who would keep reasonable in spite of pain.

“I ought to tell you.”

“Yes, you ought to tell me.”

“I wonder if I can tell you,” he said very thoughtfully, and rested his hands on his hips.  “I shall seem ridiculous to you.”

“You ought to tell me.”

“I think what I want is to be king of the world.”

She stood quite still staring at him.

“I do not know how I can tell you of it.  Amanda, do you remember those bodies—­you saw those bodies—­those mutilated men?”