ill 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.

"Your business, it seems to me, is to live to make her happy. That you
may find more of a strain. Less tragic and more tiresome. I, on the
other hand, want neither to die nor live for her." Amanda moved sharply.
"It's extraordinary what amazing vapours a lonely man may get into his
head. If you don't want a divorce then I suppose things might go on as
they are now."

"I hate things as they are now," said Easton. "I hate this falsehood and
deception."

"You would hate the scandal just as much," said Amanda.

"I would not care what the scandal was unless it hurt you."

"It would be only a temporary inconvenience," said Benham. "Every one
would sympathize with you.... The whole thing is so natural.... People
would be glad to forget very soon. They did with my mother."

"No," said Amanda, "it isn't so easy as that."

She seemed to come to a decision.

"Pip," she said. "I want to talk to--HIM--alone."

Easton's brown eyes were filled with distress and perplexity. "But why?"
he asked.

"I do," she said.

"But this is a thing for US."

"Pip, I want to talk to him alone. There is something--something I can't
say before you...."

Sir Philip rose slowly to his feet.

"Shall I wait outside?"

"No, Pip. Go home. Yes,--there are some things you must leave to me."

She stood up too and turned so that she and Benham both faced the
younger man. The strangest uneasiness mingled with his resolve to be
at any cost splendid. He felt--and it was a most unexpected and
disco