y as the early empire.
Given only the will in men and it would be possible now to turn the
dazzling accidents of science, the chancy attainments of the nineteenth
century, into a sane and permanent possession, a new starting point....
What a magnificence might be made of life!

He was aroused by Amanda's voice.

"When we go back to London, old Cheetah," she said, "we must take a
house."

For some moments he stared at her, trying to get back to their point of
divergence.

"Why?" he asked at length.

"We must have a house," she said.

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 som