“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.