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TOO OLD FOR DOLLS

A Novel

by

ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI

Author of "Mansel Fellowes," "Catherine Doyle," "A Defence
of Aristocracy," Etc.







G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York and London
The Knickerbocker Press
1921

Copyright, 1921
by
G. P. Putnam's Sons




THE ENGLISH FLAPPER[1]


    _From Nature's anvil hot she hails,
      The forge still glowing on her cheek.
    Untamed as yet, Life still prevails
      Within her breast and fain would speak._

    _But all the elfs upon the plain,
      And in the arbour where she lolls,
    Repeat the impudent refrain;
      Too young for babes, too old for dolls._

    _Her fingers deft have guessed the knack
      Of making each advantage tell:
    Her hat, her hair still down her back,
      Her frocks and muff of mighty spell;_

    _Her springtide "tailor-mades" quite plain:
      In summer-time her parasols;
    Each eloquent with the refrain:
      Too young for babes, too old for dolls._

    _Behold with what grave interest
      She looks at all, or hind or squire;
    In truth more keenly than the best
      Matriculation marks require._

    _She's told to learn from all she sees;
      To watch the seasons, how they go,
    And note the burgeoning of trees,
      Or bulbs and pansies, how they grow._

    _"Enough that they are fair!" she cries;
      "Why should I learn how lilies blow?"
    And, dropping botany, she sighs
      For some new flounce or furbelow._

    _The murmur of the woodland wild,
      The sound of courting birds that sing,
    Are sweeter music to this child
      Than all piano practising._

    _She reads of love time and again,
      And writes sad lays and barcarolles,
    All emphasising the refrain:
      Too young for babes, too old for dolls._

    _And, truth to tell, the world's a thing
      Of wonder for a life that's new,
    And trembling her passions sing
      Their praise within her father's pew._

    _Magnificats or credos sung,
      Thus oft acquire a deeper note,
    When they're intoned by voices young,
      Or issue from a virgin's throat._

    _For all the world's a wondrous thing,
      And magic to the life that's new,
    And heartily her voice-chords ring
      Beside her father's in his pew._

    _Who sees her clad in muslin white,
      With eyes downcast and manner prim,
    May well be minded by the sight,
      Of angels pure or cherubim._

    _Yet, oh, the secret lusts of life!
      The thrills and throbs but half divined;
    The future and the great word "Wife,"
      Which ofttimes occupy her mind!_

    _The wicked thoughts that come and go,
      The dreams that leave her soul aghast,
    And make her long to hold and know
      The entertaining truth at last!_

    _But still the elfs upon the plain,
      And in the arbour where she lolls,
    With merry gesture cry again:
      Too young for babes, too old for dolls._

[Footnote 1: _First published in THE NEW AGE, December 4th, 1919._]




Too Old for Dolls

CHAPTER I


On a vast Chesterfield, every unoccupied square inch of which seemed to
bulge with indignant pride, Mrs. Delarayne reclined in picturesque
repose. Her small feet, looking if possible more dainty than usual in
their spruce patent leather shoes, were resting on a rich silk cushion
whose glistening gold tassels lay heavily amid all the crushed splendour
of the couch. Other cushions, equally purse-proud and brazen, supported
the more important portions of the lady's frame, and a deep floorward
curve in the line of the Chesterfield conveyed the impression that,
however tenderly Mrs. Delarayne might wish to be embraced by her
furniture and its wedges of down, she was at all events a creature of
substantial proportions and construction.

The picture presented was one of careless and secure opulence.

The contents of the room in which Mrs. Delarayne rested had obviously
been designed and produced by human effort of the most conscientious
and loving kind. All the objects about her were treasures either of art
or antiquity, or both, and stood there as evidence of the power which
their present owner, or her ancestors, must have been able to exercise
over hundreds of gifted painters, cabinet-makers, needlewomen, potters,
braziers, carvers, metal-workers, and craftsmen of all kinds for
generations.

It was late in June in the ninth year of King Edward VII's reign--that
halcyon period when nobody who was anybody felt particularly happy,
because no such person had actually experienced what unhappiness was.
Certainly Mrs. Delarayne had not, unless she had shown really
exceptional fortitude and self-control over her husband's death.

A sound in the room suddenly made her turn her head, and she dropped her
book gently into the folds of her dress.

"My dear child," she exclaimed, addressing her elder daughter, "are you
still there? I thought you had gone long ago! I must have been asleep."

"You did sleep, Edith dear," her daughter replied, "because I heard you
snoring. You only picked up your book a moment ago."

Mrs. Delarayne examined her own blue-veined knotty hands with the
expression of one who is contemplating a phenomenon that is threatening
to become a nuisance, and then dropping them quickly out of sight again,
she glanced eagerly round the room as if she wished to forget all about
them. She did not relish her daughter's allusion to her
snoring,--another sign of the same depressing kind as her blue-veined
knotty hands,--and her next remark was made with what seemed unnecessary
anger.

"Instead of wasting your time here, Cleo," she observed, picking up her
book again, "why don't you go upstairs and pull some of those nasty
black hairs off your upper lip? You know who's coming to-day, and you
also know that young men, in this country at any rate, strongly object
to any signs of temperament in a girl. They think it incompatible with
their ideal of the angel, or the fairy, or some other nonsense."

Cleopatra rose, jerked her shoulders impatiently, and snorted.

"I should have thought it better to be natural," she blurted out. "If
it's natural for me to have dark hairs on my upper lip, then surely I
should not remove them."

Again Mrs. Delarayne dropped her book and glanced round very angrily.
"Don't be stupid, Cleo!" she cried. "What do you suppose 'natural' means
nowadays? Has it any meaning at all? Is it natural for you to blow your
nose in a lace handkerchief? Is it natural for you to do your hair up?
Is it natural for you to eat marrons glacés as you do at the rate of a
pound and a half a week,--yes, a pound and a half a week; I buy them so
I ought to know, unless the servants get at them--when you ought to be
living in a cave, dressed in bearskins and gnawing at the roots of
trees? Don't talk to me about 'natural.' Nothing is natural nowadays,
except perhaps the inexhaustible stupidity of people who choke over a
little process of beautification and yet swallow the whole complicated
artificiality of modern life."

As Mrs. Delarayne turned her refined and still very beautiful face to
the light, it became clear that she at any rate did not choke over any
"little process of beautification"; for she was at least fifty-five
years of age, and at a distance of two or three yards, looked thirty.

Cleopatra moved mutinously towards the door.

"That's right, my dear," said her mother in more conciliatory tones. "I
don't mind your upper lip; I like it. But then I understand. Denis does
not understand, and I'm convinced that he doesn't like it."

Flushing slightly, Cleopatra turned to face her mother. "Edith dear, how
can you talk such nonsense!" she exclaimed. "What do I care whether
Denis likes it or not?"

Mrs. Delarayne smiled. "Well, I do, my dear. When you are my age you'll
be as anxious as I am to get your daughters married."

The younger woman turned her head. "Married!" she cried. "Oh when shall
I hear the end of that litany! I suppose you want me to marry anybody,
it doesn't matter whom, so long as I----"

"H'm," grunted the parent. "I don't think the discussion of that
particular point would prove profitable."

Cleopatra sailed haughtily out of the room, and there was just the
suggestion of an angry slam in the way she closed the door after her.

She was now twenty-five years of age. "Much too old," was the mother's
comment. "It must be this year or never." She was a good-looking girl,
dark, with large intelligent eyes, a pretty, straight nose, and full
well-shaped lips. About five foot six in height, she was also well
developed. Certainly her colouring was not quite all that it might have
been; but she was naturally a little anæmic, as all decent girls should
be who, at twenty-five years of age, are still unmarried. "It seems
absurd," thought her mother, "that such a creature should have had to
wait so long." And then with an effort she turned her thoughts to less
depressing matters.

Mrs. Delarayne was a widow. Her late husband, a wealthy, retired
Canadian lawyer, had been dead four years, having left her in her
fifty-first year very comfortably off with two attractive daughters. She
had inherited everything he possessed, including two handsome
establishments, the one in Kensington and the other at Brineweald,
Kent,--and in his will there had not been even a small special provision
for either of his children. Economically, therefore, Cleopatra and
Leonetta Delarayne were bound hand and foot to their mother. But
although Mrs. Delarayne was by no means averse to power, she wielded it
so delicately in her relations with her offspring, that after their
father's death neither of her daughters ever learnt to doubt that what
was "Edith's" was theirs also. In regard to one question alone did Mrs.
Delarayne ever lay her hands significantly upon her gold bags--and that
was marriage. She never concealed from them that she would be liberal to
the point of recklessness if they married, but that she would draw in
her purse-strings very tightly, indeed, if they remained spinsters. In
fact it was understood that when she died each of her daughters, if wed,
would inherit half her wealth, but if they remained old maids, the bulk
of it would most certainly go to some promising though impecunious young
man in her circle.

She professed to loathe the sight, so common alas! in England, of the
affluent spinster, "growing pointlessly rotund on rich food at one of
the smug hotels or boarding-houses for parasitic nonentities, which are
distributed so plentifully all over the land," while thousands of
promising young men had to wait too long before they were able to take
their bride to the altar. It was her view that this feature of social
life in England was truly the white man's burden, and she vowed that no
money of hers would ever help to produce so nauseating a spectacle.
Behind Mrs. Delarayne's laudable views on this subject, however, there
were doubtless other and less patriotic considerations, which may or
may not be revealed in the course of this story.

A few minutes later the maid entered the room and announced, "Sir Joseph
Bullion."

"Show him in," cried her mistress, throwing her legs smartly off the
Chesterfield, adjusting her dress with a few swift touches, and then
reclining limply amid the cushions in a manner suggesting extreme
feebleness and fatigue.

The maid reappeared and ushered in a very much over-dressed old
gentleman.

He stood for some seconds on the threshold, smiling engagingly into the
room. It was difficult to refrain from the thought that his affability
was largely the outcome of entire self-satisfaction; for as he posed in
the full light of the window, there was that about his attitude and
expression which seemed to invite and defy the most searching
inspection. Nor did his eyes smile with true kindliness, but rather with
the conscious triumph of the attractive débutante.

Mrs. Delarayne quietly noticed all these familiar traits in her friend,
and responded in the expected manner with one or two idle compliments
that afforded him infinite satisfaction.

"No, sit here beside me," she whispered, as if every effort to speak
might prove too much for her.

Sir Joseph did as he was bid, lingered tenderly over the handshake, and
gazed with strained sympathy into his companion's healthy face.

"Younger than ever!" he exclaimed, "but not very well I fear."

He was accustomed to Mrs. Delarayne's occasional affectation of
valetudinarian peevishness, alleged ill-health as a fact. As a rule it
was the prelude to the request for a favour on a grand scale, and being
a man of very great wealth, and therefore somewhat tight-fisted, he was
always rendered unusually solemn by his friend's fits of indisposition.

They chatted idly for a while; Mrs. Delarayne gradually receding from
the position of one on the verge of a dangerous malady, to that of a
person merely threatened with a serious breakdown if her worries were
not immediately made to cease.

It was a strange relationship that united these two people. Although Sir
Joseph was not more than five years the lady's senior, she always
treated him as if he belonged to a previous geological period; and he,
chivalrously shouldering the burden of æons, had acquired the courteous
habit of opening all his anecdotal pronouncements with such words as:
"You would not remember old so-and-so," or "You cannot be expected to
remember the days when";--a formality which, while it delighted Mrs.
Delarayne, convinced her more and more that although Sir Joseph might
make an excellent ancestor, it would have been an indignity for a woman
of her years to accept him as a lover.

Sir Joseph had already been married once, and it had been the mistake
of his life. Before he could have had the shadow of a suspicion that he
was even to be an immensely wealthy man, he had, out of sentiment, taken
a woman of his own class whom he had found somewhere in the Midlands.
With her decease Sir Joseph, who was rapidly becoming a substantial and
important member of society, hoped that his lowly past had died also;
and when from the window of the first coach he watched the hearse
bearing his wife swing round through the gates of the cemetery, he
mentally recorded the resolution that on that day all uncertain syntax,
all abuse and neglect of aspirates, and all Midland slang should be
banished from his house for ever. He had loved his wife, but he frankly
acknowledged to his soul that her death had been opportune; and as her
coffin was lowered into the grave, he could not help muttering the
thought, "Here also lies Bad Grammar. R.I.P."

Now compared with the late Mrs. Bullion, Mrs. Delarayne seemed to Sir
Joseph a paragon of brilliance. She had dazzled him from the moment of
their first meeting, and she continued to do so without effort, or, it
must be admitted, without malicious intent either. Here was a woman who
could be an honour to a wealthy man, who could gratify his lust for
display, and carry the convincing proofs of his great wealth right under
the noses of the very best people, without ever provoking the usual
comments of the spiteful and the envious. She was a creature, moreover,
with a large circle of influential and distinguished friends, and she
possessed that inimitable calmness of bearing in their company, beside
which Sir Joseph's mental picture of the first Mrs. Bullion partook of
the mobility of a cinematograph or of a Catherine wheel in full action.

Mrs. Delarayne on the other hand had, as we have already seen, tutored
herself into regarding Sir Joseph simply as a venerable old relic. In
her fifty-fifth year this brave lady held very decided views about youth
and age, and was very far from admitting that a man five years her
senior was the only possible match for her. Indeed it was only the
presence of her daughters that for some time past had prevented her from
seriously contemplating and arranging a very different kind of match.
Since their father's death she had schooled them into calling her
"Edith"; she had also succeeded by means of certain modifications in her
appearance, not confined entirely to her raiment and her coiffure, in
creating the illusion of thirty; and everything she said and did was
calculated to confirm this process of self-deception. She loathed old
age. The very breath of an old person in the room in which she sat was
enough to oppress and stifle her. It always struck her that the bitter
smell of corpses was not far distant from the couch whereon they
reclined. She wanted youth. Rightly or wrongly she thought she was
entitled to the best, and who will deny that youth is the best? She was
devotedly attached to young men. She would have required a good deal of
persuasion to believe that a man of thirty was too young for her; and if
she had deprived herself of this one luxury, it was, as we have seen,
simply out of regard for her daughters. She entertained no rooted
objection to disparity in ages as a matter of principle.

In the circumstances, Sir Joseph's senile raptures were simply tiresome,
and had he not been enormously rich she would have thought them a little
presumptuous. But there were many ways in which Sir Joseph Bullion's
friendship proved useful to her. He was not only a wealthy man, he was
also highly influential, and again and again she had used him and his
power for her own private purposes.

She proposed to use him again on this occasion.

"As a matter of fact," she said, correcting herself for the fourth time,
"I am not so much indisposed as angry."

"Not with me, I hope?" exclaimed the baronet.

As he proceeded to chuckle asthmatically over the fantastic
improbability of this suggestion, the elderly matron with marked
irritation called him sharply to order. "Have you read the papers?" she
demanded.

"'Ave I read the papers?" he repeated. "Of course I've read the papers."

Occasionally, very occasionally, particularly after periods of much
autogenous mirth, Sir Joseph Bullion dropped an H. But he never noticed
it. It was a sort of unconscious reverberation of former days; as if his
lowly past, especially that portion of it which had been spent with the
first and ungrammatical Mrs. Bullion, insisted on revealing itself to
the world, to be acknowledged and congratulated on what it had achieved.

"Well then," pursued the widow firmly, "you know about Lord Henry!"

"Lord Henry?" he cried. "What about Lord Henry?"

Mrs. Delarayne began to examine her rings very studiously, as if she
wished to make quite certain that none of the stones had gone astray in
the last five minutes. "It's all very well, Joseph," she observed
quietly; "but if Lord Henry goes--I go. Now understand that once and for
all. I can't endure London without him."

"Not really?" he ejaculated, leaning forward. "Are you serious? D'you
mean Lord Henry, the biologist or something?"

Mrs. Delarayne continued the close scrutiny of her rings.

"Of course I mean it," she said in the same quiet but utterly
unanswerable way. "You have no idea what Lord Henry means to me. He's
literally the only young man in London who does not treat me as if I
were a creature of mediæval antiquity."

Sir Joseph crestfallen sank back again hopelessly into the cushions.

Mrs. Delarayne proceeded to explain that owing to the meddlesomeness of
some officious busybody on the Executive Council of the Society for
Anthropological Research--an old maid she felt certain--Lord Henry
Highbarn had been invited to go to Central China as the Society's
plenipotentiary, in order to investigate the reasons of China's
practical immunity from lunacy and nervous diseases of all kinds. Lord
Henry had accepted the honour and was leaving in three months' time. She
then picked up the newspaper, and read aloud the concluding paragraph of
the article on the subject:

     "His departure from this country will be a severe blow to
     the hundreds of nervous invalids who annually benefit from
     his skill at his Sanatorium in Kent, and the world of
     science will find it difficult to replace him. It appears
     that Lord Henry has one or two ardent disciples who will be
     in a position to carry on his great work, but a leading
     London specialist, Dr. David Melhado, declared to our
     representative to-day, that without the guidance of Lord
     Henry's brilliant and original genius, it is doubtful
     whether any of his pupils will ever dare to treat the more
     obscure nervous cases on their master's drastic and
     unprecedented lines."

"There now!" she cried, crumpling up the paper and throwing it away.
"You see what that means. It means that women like myself are once more
to be condemned to the dangerous misunderstanding to which we were
exposed before Lord Henry came on the scene. And we certainly can't
survive it."

Sir Joseph surveyed his companion's robust figure and healthy
countenance for some seconds, and an incredulous smile gradually spread
over his flushed and puffy features. "Surely there can't be very much
wrong with you--is there?" he dared to suggest for once.

Mrs. Delarayne's eyes suddenly flashed with fire, and she cowed him by a
single glance. "Don't talk of things you understand so little," she
snapped. "Lord Henry must at all costs be induced to remain in
England,--that's your job. He must not go. And anyhow China is such a
ridiculous place to go to. Nobody ever goes to China except
missionaries. Of course the Chinese haven't any nerves, because they
haven't any daughters--they kill them all. That's a very simple way of
keeping your mental balance. I confess that the prospect of going to
China is not an inviting one, and yet if Lord Henry goes, I don't see
what other alternative we poor sufferers will have."

Sir Joseph again glanced dubiously at the healthy woman beside him, and
drummed his knees thoughtfully with his large fingers.

"You know without me telling you," he observed at last, "that I'll do
whatever you want. It's happened before and it'll happen again." And he
rolled his bloodshot eyes as if to make it quite clear that for this
great favour a great reward would be expected.

Mrs. Delarayne examined him covertly and began to wonder with a sudden
feeling of despair how such a creature could possibly hope to be a match
for Lord Henry.

"And if I do induce Lord Henry to remain in England,--what then?" the
baronet demanded.

The widow sighed. "You'll be a public benefactor," she said; "a blessing
to your race."

"I don't suppose there's much money, is there, in this trip to China?"
he asked pompously. "And Lord Henry can't be a very rich man."

"He's very poor," replied Mrs. Delarayne.

Sir Joseph smiled knowingly and lay back amid the cushions with an air
of perfect self-appreciation and confidence.

"There's only one thing that great wealth cannot do, it seems to me," he
said, smiling and making every kind of grimace indicative of the immense
difficulty he was experiencing in not laughing at what was passing
through his mind.

Mrs. Delarayne dreaded the worst, but felt that not to press for
enlightenment at this juncture would reveal an indifference which would
prove unfavourable to her schemes. "And what is that?" she asked.

"It cannot change a woman's fancy, of course!" Sir Joseph ejaculated,
and laughed very violently indeed. "'Ave you caught my meaning?" he
added, as his hilarity subsided.

Mrs. Delarayne toyed with her book.

"Come, come, Edith!" he pursued. "If I get Lord Henry to remain in
London, as I've no doubt I shall,--what then?" He ogled her roguishly.

Mrs. Delarayne tried, while smiling politely, to introduce as little
encouragement as possible into her expression.

"Between you and I," the baronet continued, "it isn't as if we had a
whole lifetime before us. You may have,--I haven't. These delays are a
little unwise at our time of life."

He caught her hand and for some reason, possibly his great agitation,
pressed her finger-nails deep into the convex bulb of his large hot
thumb, as if he were intent upon testing their sharpness.

Mrs. Delarayne removed her hand. "Joseph, I had hoped you were not going
to refer to this again for some while. I have told you hundreds of
times, or more, that a woman cannot marry with decency a second time
when she has two strapping daughters who have not yet married once."

Sir Joseph shrugged his shoulders.

"It's all very well," pursued the widow, "but it is difficult enough for
Cleo to forgive my having married at all. I could not possibly confront
her with a second husband before she, poor girl, had met her first. Oh
no!--it would be too great an insult. I'd die of shame. No, before you
have me you'll have to get my daughters married. That bargain I strike
with you."

He smiled ecstatically. "Promise?"

"I promise."

He bent forward and kissed her very clumsily, and Mrs. Delarayne by
blowing her nose was able deftly to wipe her mouth without his noticing
the movement.

"What is that young fool, my secretary, doing?" he enquired at last.
"Did I not bring him and Cleo together all through the spring at
Brineweald Park?"

"Denis is a nincompoop," Mrs. Delarayne declared drily. "I don't believe
for a minute that we should any of us be here if he had taken Adam's
place in the Garden of Eden. What a fortunate thing it was, by-the-by,
that the Almighty did not choose a very modern sort of man to live in
sin with Eve!"

Sir Joseph laughed. "Denis a nincompoop? I don't believe it."

Mrs. Delarayne snorted.

"But how are they getting on?"

"Don't ask me," she sighed wearily. "They philander. They are now at the
very dangerous and inconclusive stage of being 'practically engaged.' It
never signifies anything, because no man who really means business has
the patience to be practically engaged."

Sir Joseph looked and felt sympathetic.

"They hold hands, I believe," the widow resumed, "and discuss the
philosophers. Probably in a year's time if all goes well they will kiss
and discuss the poets."

Sir Joseph uttered an expletive of surprise.

"Yes--I'm disappointed in Denis. I don't trust these very cheerful men,
who have a ready laugh and a sense of humour. They laugh to conceal the
fact that they cannot crow, and they crack jokes because they cannot
break hearts. Give me the broody serious men with fierce looks and slow
smiles."

"Isn't Cleo in love with him?"

"Poor soul!" Mrs. Delarayne exclaimed. "She does her best. She would
take him, of course, simply because it will soon be an indignity for her
to remain single one minute longer. She would probably die of shame too
if someone else took Denis from her. But I think you know, that the man
who provokes Cleo's love will have to be a little bit different from
Denis."




CHAPTER II


On being dismissed from her mother's presence, Cleopatra did not go as
she had been commanded to her mirror in order to remove the little
shadow of down that adorned her upper lip. She retired instead to the
library, and ensconcing herself in one of the large leather easy chairs,
continued her reading of Jane Austen's _Sense and Sensibility_.

Occasionally while she read she would raise her eyes from the printed
page to look at her unengaged hand as it rested on the arm of the chair
she occupied, and for some moments she would be wrapped in thought.

There had been no lack of competition for that hand since the day when,
at her coming-out dance, she had so eagerly extended it to Life for all
that Life had to offer. It was not that it had come back empty to her
side that made her sad. If occasionally she was moved by a little
bitterness about her brief existence, it was rather because the kind of
things with which her outstretched hand had been filled were so dismally
unsatisfying. She counted the men she had been compelled to refuse. They
numbered only two, but there were at least three others whom she had
never allowed to get as far as a proposal.

Again for the hundredth time she passed them in review. Had she acted
wisely? Were they so utterly impossible? Now, at the age of twenty-five,
her worldly wisdom answered, "Nay," but deep down in her breast a less
cultivated and more vigorous impulse answered most emphatically "Yea."

From early girlhood onwards Cleopatra had cherished very definite ideas
about the man of her taste. In this she was by no means exceptional. But
perhaps the circumstances that she had abided more steadfastly than most
by the pattern her imagination had originally limned distinguished her
from her more fickle sisters. The fault she found with the modern world
was that it did not offer you man whole or complete, but only in
fragments. To be quite plain, it offered you, from the athlete to the
poet, a series of isolated manly characteristics, but it did not give
you all the manly characteristics in one being at once, which
constituted the all-round man of her dreams.

Whether it was that man had specialised too much of recent years, or
what the reason might be, Cleopatra could not tell. But whenever she
passed the men of her acquaintance in review, she always arrived at the
same conclusion, that each represented only a fragment of what the whole
man of her ideal was, and doubtless of what man himself had once been.
It was as if she had been deposited among the ruins of a once beautiful
cathedral. Fine pieces of screen architecture, exquisite portions of the
capitals, delightful gargoyles, lay in profusion all around: but the
whole building could be reconstructed in all its majesty, only by an
effort of the imagination. This effort of the imagination she had made
as a girl of seventeen.

To-day it seemed to her, you might choose the cleanly-bred, healthy,
upright, jaunty athlete, and sigh in vain for a companion who could
either sob or rejoice with you over the glory of a sonnet, a picture, or
a statue; or else you might choose the slightly effete and partly
neurotic poet or artist, and languish unconsoled, away from the joys of
the fine, clean, stubbornly healthy body. The kind of fire that led to
elopements, to wild and clandestine love-making, could now, with too few
exceptions, be found only among ne'er-do-wells, foreign adventurers,
cut-throats or knaves; while the stability that promised security for
the future and for the family, seemed generally to present itself with a
sort of tiresome starchiness of body and jejuneness of mind, that
thought it childish to abandon itself to any emotion.

She was deep enough, primitively female enough to demand and expect a
certain savour of wickedness in him who wooed her. But she was more
accustomed to perceive the outward signs of this coveted quality in the
waiters at the Carlton, or the Savoy, and among dust-men, coal-heavers
and butcher-boys, than in the men of her mother's circle.

Had man been tamed out of all recognition? Or was her instinct wrong,
and was it perverse to sigh for fire, wickedness, stability,
cultivation, and healthy athleticism--all in the same man? She had read
of Alcibiades, of men who were not fragmentary. Could such a man be born
nowadays, and if born could he survive? Certainly the men she had
refused had not been of this stamp.

It was miserably disappointing, and with it all there was her mother's
untiring insistence upon the urgency of getting married. It was more
than disappointing: it was a genuine grievance, but a grievance of a
kind which most young women nowadays bury unredressed, and the former
existence of which in their lives they reveal only by a tired, wasted
look in their faces, which leads their husbands to consider
them--"delicate."

With all her fastidiousness in regard to the man of her desire, however,
Cleopatra was not to be confused with the romantic idealist who craves
for that which never has been and never can be possible on earth. To
have misunderstood her to this extent would have been a gross injustice.
She had built up her picture of her mate, not with the help of feverish
and morbid fancy, but guided only by the hints of an exceptionally
healthy body. Modest to a degree to which only great reserves of
passion can attain, it was to her a dire need that her mate should have
fire, because half-consciously she divined that only fire purified and
sanctified the transition from girlhood to womanhood. Half-heartedness
here, or the lack of a great passionate momentum, that carried
everything before it, spelt to her something distinctly discomfiting,
not to say indecent. And in this, far from being a romantic idealist,
she was entirely right and realistic. This explains why her taste
inclined more resolutely to the adventurous idea of love, to the
impromptu element, to the wild ardour of first embraces that must
perforce flee from the sight of fellow creatures, than to the kind of
graduated passion which begins with conversation, proceeds to a public
engagement with staring people all about you, and ends with the still
more measured tempo of a Church wedding. All the waiting, all the
temporising, all the toadlike deliberation that these various slow steps
involved, ran counter to her deepest feeling, that her love must be a
matter of touch and go, a sudden kindling of two fires, the burning not
of green wood but of a volcano.

But where, these days, could she find the partner who was prepared, and
above all equipped, to play his part to hers? This was her grievance.
And again in justice to her it must be acknowledged that it was a
genuine one.

The young man whom her mother was at present "running" for her, was a
creature at whom, as a girl of eighteen, she would not have looked a
second time. But how much more modest in its demands had her taste not
become as she had advanced in years! How much more docile and
unassuming! She saw other girls marrying men not unlike Denis Malster;
so why couldn't she? She concluded that it must evidently be the fate of
modern women to accept the third-rate, the third-best--in fact
disillusionment as a law of their beings; and having no one to support
her in her soundest instincts, she began rather to doubt the validity of
their claim, than to turn resolutely away from marriage altogether.

And now there was to be a complication in her trouble. Leonetta was
returning home for good--Leonetta, the child eight years her junior,
Leonetta was now as fresh, as attractive, and as blooming, as she
herself had been when she was just seventeen, and whom, from habit, she
still called "Baby."

Quietly she had waited and waited for the man of her heart, and been
able to do this without the additional annoyance of competition to
disturb or excite her. Peacefully these seven years she had lain like a
watcher on the shore, scanning the horizon with her glass, without even
a nudge of the elbow from her younger sister. And now she was no longer
to be alone. A distracting, possibly an utterly defeating element was
going to be introduced into her peaceful though anxious existence, and
she shuddered unmistakably at the thought.

As yet she had harboured no conscious hostility towards her junior,
merely a desire to keep her as long as possible at a distance, in order
that the one relationship of which she had the deepest dread--that of
competitors in the same field--might be warded off indefinitely, or,
better still, never experienced between them.

She did not yet fear Baby. The disparity in their ages seemed too great
and too obvious for that: but in recollecting certain incidents in their
childhood, and one or two things about Baby's appearance and behaviour
during the last two years, Cleopatra could not entirely free herself
from a perfectly definite feeling of vexation in regard to her sister.
Baby had not troubled her at all as an infant. It was as a child of
eight, when Cleopatra was just sixteen, that her sister had first
revealed disquieting proclivities. She had, for instance, a command of
blandishments which to her elder were a closed book. By means of wiles
and cajoleries utterly inimitable, she could extract money and presents
from adults from whom the haughty Cleopatra would not even have
solicited a kiss. In five years Baby had received more boxes of
chocolates and more dolls than her sister had received during her whole
lifetime. This was not, however, because the younger child was in any
respect more beautiful than the elder, but rather owing to the younger's
extraordinary gift for securing what she wanted by any means that might
come to hand.

For a long while Cleopatra had looked on, wistfully it is true, but not
enviously at her sister's astonishingly successful career: for was not
Baby only a child after all? And, from the age of eleven to fourteen,
Leonetta had been so outrageously gawky and unattractive, no matter how
beautifully she happened to be clad, that Cleopatra's feelings of
uneasiness about her sister were laid to rest as if for ever during this
period.

Then, all of a sudden--and the day was written indelibly on the elder
girl's memory--on a certain spring morning, at the time of year when
winter frocks are doffed for lighter and brighter confections, Cleopatra
beheld a vision, the nature of which was such as in a trice to
resuscitate all those anxieties about her junior which, to do her
justice, she had long ago relegated to oblivion.

The event occurred in Mrs. Delarayne's bedroom. Cleopatra, then a girl
of twenty-two, was discussing with her mother the details of the Easter
holiday programme and with her back to the door and her face to the
window, was as completely unconscious of the surprise awaiting her as
the bedroom furniture itself.

All at once the door opened. At first Cleopatra did not turn round, and
it was only when the exceptionally fulsome manner of her mother's
outburst of joy awakened her suspicions that at last she looked round
and was confronted by the vision.

It was Baby--undoubtedly it was Baby; but certainly not the awkward
child of a month, of a week, of a day, or even an hour ago. It was Baby
transformed, nay transfigured, as if by magic. Whether the change had
been gradual and imperceptible, or as sudden as Cleopatra imagined it to
have been, the elder girl did not stop to think; she simply allowed her
eyes to dwell almost spellbound upon the startling apparition facing
her, and as quickly as a dart, before she was able to arrest it, a pang,
a pain, or a convulsion of some sort, was communicated to her heart, the
meaning of which she did not dare at first to analyse.

For Leonetta, from a Mohawk, from a sexless savage with tangled hair and
blotchy features, from an angular filly devoid of grace and charm, had
by a stroke of the wand become metamorphosed into a remarkably
attractive young woman. It was startling: but it was also undeniable. It
was not the vernal frock, of that Cleopatra was convinced; although Mrs.
Delarayne had concentrated chiefly upon this feature in her transports
of joy over her younger daughter's dramatic and spontaneous assumption
of womanly beauty. Had it been only the frock Cleopatra was intelligent
enough to have known that the pang she had felt would have been left
unexplained. No, it was more fundamental than that. All the dress had
accomplished was to set an acute accent over a development which, though
already at its penultimate stage, had so far escaped the notice of
Cleopatra and her mother. The picture had been present the day before,
but it had not been quite perfectly focussed. The new frock had focussed
it sharply.

Cleopatra remembered having asked herself whether Leonetta could be
aware of the change that had come over her. But plainly her behaviour
had dispelled this suspicion. Leonetta had behaved on that memorable
occasion exactly as she had done throughout the previous week. Not even
a sign of enhanced self-possession or assurance had betrayed the fact of
an inward change, and somehow this unconsciousness of her accession of
power only seemed to Cleopatra to make that power more formidable.

Events followed rapidly one upon the other after that. Everybody noticed
the change and the improvement. Everybody commented on it. Mrs.
Delarayne was doubly rejoiced, because although both her daughters were
beautiful, Leonetta's features and style were more her mother's than
Cleopatra's were. Cleopatra was a Delarayne, her beauty was if anything
more severe and more stately than her mother's. Now the resemblance
between Leonetta and her mother had become striking. But strangers were
little occupied with this aspect of Leonetta's beauty. And when
Cleopatra observed that the attention of men, in and out of doors, had
become more marked towards her sister, and that they had begun even to
turn round to stare at her in the street, the elder girl knew that her
vision on that unforgettable spring morning had not been an
hallucination: on the contrary it was a fact, and one to which she must
do her best to reconcile herself.

Gradually the consequences of the change were forced upon the
consciousness of Leonetta herself and her manner became correspondingly
modified. Leonetta knew that she was a beautiful young woman. Leonetta
realised that this meant power, and at last she gauged to the smallest
fraction the extent of that power.

Then followed a mighty tussle in Cleopatra's heart. The influence the
elder daughter had always exercised over the mother's mind now presented
itself as a temptation, as a weapon she might use in a threatened
struggle. But it must not be supposed that this temptation was yielded
to without a furious conflict.

Leonetta did not know French well. French would give the stamp of finish
to an education which, in the case of the younger daughter, with her
constitutional disinclination for study, was little more than
make-believe. Ought not Baby to be sent abroad? Was it not doing her the
greatest service to speed her thither? Crudely Cleopatra concluded that
she was really acting altruistically in warmly advocating this
scheme--self-analysis is frequently as inaccurate as this;--besides,
would not she, Cleopatra, in the interval become engaged, married, and
an independent person outside her mother's home, and away from
Leonetta's "pitch"? The programme was surely all in favour of the
younger girl.

The plan was laid before Mrs. Delarayne, calmly, solemnly, with all the
elaborate minutiæ of earnest concern about a sister's welfare that
Cleopatra could summon. And the result was that within six weeks of that
terrible Easter, arrangements had been made for Leonetta to spend at
least a year in a large and expensive school at Versailles, where she
could not only acquire the vernacular, but also become infected with the
polish of the native.

Sublimely unsuspecting, Leonetta had embraced her sister passionately on
the platform of Charing Cross station, and Cleopatra had even shed a
tear of pious sorrow.

Her mother had pointed out to Cleopatra at the time that she herself had
enjoyed none of the advantages which she urged with so much generous
fervour on behalf of her sister. Cleopatra had replied that she had had
other advantages, a University education, a classical training, the kind
of cultivation for which Leonetta was unsuited and in the acquisition of
which she would have been unhappy.

But worse was to come. At the end of the year Leonetta had returned;
and, if it is possible to imagine the superlative surpassed, certainly
Leonetta's appearance on her return, her increased vivacity, her perfect
command of French, her new tricks with her hair and clothes, utterly
eclipsed the Leonetta who had left her Kensington home a year
previously.

Nothing had happened to Cleopatra in the meantime, and the elder girl,
after having rapidly adopted subtly modified imitations of her sister's
style of coiffure, was once again thrust hopelessly into the very
position against which her nobler instincts most heartily rebelled. She
refused to remain in a relation of tacit, covert, and ill-concealed
rivalry to one whom the whole world, including her mother, expected her
to love. It was ignominious; it was intolerable. It poisoned her to the
very marrow. It made her ache at night when she ought to have been
sleeping. Had she been less like Leonetta than she was, had she
possessed less passion, less beauty, and less desire than her sister,
she could have endured it. As it was the position entailed a perpetual
upheaval of her peace of mind.

She was at her wits' end. To face her mother with another scheme for
Leonetta's welfare was out of the question. What could she do?

Fortunately for Cleopatra, Leonetta herself brought about the
unravelment in a manner sufficiently satisfactory to her sister.

Charming and, in many ways, irresistible as she was, Leonetta had
brought back a will of her own from Versailles, and a tongue, too, by
means of which she secured that will's highest purposes. During her
absence from London, however, her mother had acquired certain habits and
tastes, the pursuit of which now frequently clashed with her own plans
and ran distinctly counter to her notion of what a mother should be and
should do. For Cleopatra had made singularly few claims upon her
mother's time all this while, and had never questioned her absolute
right to seek her enjoyment when and where she chose.

After a year of this novel experience, during which Mrs. Delarayne had
discovered new haunts and new households in which she could behave, even
if she were not accepted, as a person who was not of "mediæval
antiquity," her taste for this kind of life had developed. Enamoured as
this sprightly quinquagenarian had always been of the other sex, and
resolute as she was to show that an old war-horse could prance as
bravely as a colt to the stirring trumpet call of youth, she had entered
heart and soul into an existence which her late husband would have
deprecated as strongly as he had once admired the spirit which led her
to do it.

Now the sudden intrusion of a full-grown, wilful and extraordinarily
vigorous girl of fifteen and a half years upon these newly acquired
habits, proved a source of some vexation to the widow; and, love
Leonetta as she might, she very quickly discovered that the peace of
mind and freedom of action that Cleopatra had allowed her unstintingly
were to be despotically withheld by her younger and more exacting
offspring.

Cleopatra watched and understood all this. It seemed that Mrs. Delarayne
and Leonetta were inevitably heading towards a catastrophe; nor did the
elder girl take any steps, either by word or deed, to guide either of
them to a peaceable adjustment of their differences.

Gradually Leonetta grew to be deliberately rude with her parent, would
refuse to fetch and carry for her, was quickly bored over any little
personal service performed for her, and did her best in every way to
cramp the widow's ever freshly sprouting affection.

At last Cleopatra felt she must put in a word. Her mother was very
highly strung, in any case too much so to be exposed constantly to
irritation and sorrow. Could she help? Could she speak to Baby?

It was then that Mrs. Delarayne had opened her heart to Cleopatra. No,
she had made up her mind. Reluctantly she had been forced to the
conclusion that Leonetta must go away,--to a school of domesticity, or
of gardening or something,--where she could acquire not only
information, but also the discipline which would save her from growing
up an impossible woman.

Cleopatra had given vent to a sigh of relief, and with decent slowness
and hesitation had ultimately agreed.

A somewhat acrimonious quarrel between Mrs. Delarayne and Leonetta, a
day or two after this conversation had taken place, proved to be the
determining factor. In her passion Leonetta had declared that she would
be as glad as anything to go, if only for company, as it seemed to her
that her mother was eternally "gadding about"; and it was only when she
was alone in a first-class carriage travelling northward that she
regretted this hasty and ill-considered speech.

Another year had passed in this way; Leonetta had by now become,
according to the domesticity school reports, an accomplished
housekeeper, and, as a girl of seventeen, was on her way home. Coming
home!--Cleopatra had dwelt on this homecoming every wakeful hour of the
last thirty days, and again she felt that pang, or pain, or strange
convulsion of the heart, which she loathed because it humiliated her,
and which she combated because it threatened to master her.

Thus did Cleopatra meditate over her lot as she examined her fine,
strong, disengaged hand, as she sat in the study on that afternoon in
June; and Jane Austen's _Sense and Sensibility_ had little to offer her
either in comfort or enlightenment.

It was a fine hand she looked at. The fingers were well-shaped, long and
even, without any of those thicknesses at the joints which so often mar
the beauty of hands even in men. The finger-nails were not too long, and
there was a sort of "well-upholstered" fulness of the fingers and palm
which spoke of health and latent efficiency. It was not a small hand, or
in any case, not too small a hand, and on the inside it possessed those
soft corrugations that denote artistic sensibilities.




CHAPTER III


The central offices of Bullion and Bullion Ltd. were in Lombard Street.
They occupied a large building constructed of ferroconcrete, on each
floor of which, except the first, there was accommodation for hundreds
of clerks.

The room occupied by Sir Joseph Bullion, on the first floor, was one of
those apartments with very tall mantelpieces and enormous windows, which
seem to have been designed for a race of giants. Certainly Sir Joseph
himself, unless he had climbed on a chair, could never have rested his
elbow against the mantelpiece, nor could he have deposited his cigar
thereon without an unusually strenuous effort. The remaining
appointments of the room, except for two or three exquisite Stuart
cabinets and some priceless old masters on the walls, were designed on
the same scale. Sir Joseph's own table, for instance, though of normal
height, looked as if it might have been purchased by the acre, while the
carpet, a huge Turkey, presented an enormously long pile, as soft as
moss, to the feet. Even the chair on which the head of the firm sat was
exceptionally large, and seemed to offer its occupant the constant
alternative of definitely selecting either one or the other side of the
extensive surface which lay between its arms.

Opposite him at a smaller table sat his chief private secretary, Denis
Malster, a pale, clean-shaven, intelligent-looking young man, with
mouse-coloured hair, grey eyes, and somewhat thin lips. Certainly Mrs.
Delarayne must have been right about his sense of humour, for a pleasant
twinkle played about his eyes, even while he was at work, which gave him
the air of one amused by what he was doing.

Sir Joseph did not pretend to understand the people who served him; but
having been hard driven himself in his day, he had a pretty shrewd
notion of the power he could safely exercise over them, and of the
duties, supplementary to the office routine, which he could reasonably
induce them to fulfil. To make fourths at tennis or at bridge, to fill a
gap at a Cinderella dance or at a dinner, or to help at a charity
bazaar--these were some of the duties which Sir Joseph's highest
personnel knew that they might be called upon to perform at any moment
for one of Sir Joseph's numerous lady friends.

Thus a few days after his visit to Mrs. Delarayne, which has already
been described, the Chairman of Bullion and Bullion Ltd., occupying the
centre of his thronelike chair, was engaged on two tasks, either one of
which would have been sufficient to occupy the wits of any ordinary
man. He had before him the figures showing the business of his firm for
the half year, and in the intervals of his study of these data, he was
covertly watching his chief private secretary, with a view to estimating
his chances of success in regard to a certain secret scheme in which
this young man was to play a leading part.

Suddenly his dual activities were interrupted by the chief messenger,
who, entering in his usual pompous fashion, presented a card to his
chief, bearing the name Aubrey St. Maur. "The gentleman wishes to see
you urgently, Sir Joseph," said the man.

Sir Joseph passed the card to his assistant, and waited for
enlightenment.

Denis Malster examined it, rose, and returned it to Sir Joseph. "Lives
in Upper Brook Street, Mayfair," he said; "he's evidently somebody, but
I've never heard of him."

"The point is," Sir Joseph exclaimed sharply, "have I an appointment
with him?"

"No, sir, you have no appointment with him," said Denis firmly, without
referring to the notes on his table.

Sir Joseph was too well aware of his secretary's efficiency to doubt
this assurance, and bade him go to see what Mr. Aubrey St. Maur wanted.

In a moment Denis returned. "He's from Lord Henry Highbarn," he informed
his chief. "He wishes to deliver a message to you."

Sir Joseph glanced out of the huge window at his side, and appeared to
take counsel of the tangle of chimney pots and telegraph wires that
formed the only prospect from that side of the building. He repeated the
name once or twice in a mystified manner, at length remembered the
difficult task Mrs. Delarayne had asked him to perform in persuading
Lord Henry to abandon his mission to China, and bade his secretary show
St. Maur in.

The young man who followed Denis back into the room was a person of
refined and handsome appearance, who, as he advanced towards Sir Joseph,
introduced himself and explained his business with a degree of grace and
composure at which even the seasoned old Stuart furniture seemed to
stare in amazement.

St. Maur took a chair beside Sir Joseph's vast table, and Malster
returned to his place.

"You are doubtless aware," said the stranger, "that Lord Henry was due
here at this very moment."

Sir Joseph looked furtively towards his secretary and nodded.

St. Maur then proceeded to explain that owing to urgent Party duties at
Westminster Lord Henry could not possibly reach Lombard Street before
six o'clock that evening, and begged Sir Joseph to say whether he could
see him at that hour. He was to return to Westminster at once and convey
Sir Joseph's reply to Lord Henry.

The baronet fixed the appointment with Lord Henry for that hour, and St.
Maur rose to go.

"Half a minute!" exclaimed Sir Joseph. "Please remain seated a moment
longer, Mr. St. Maur, and tell me something about Lord Henry. I am a
busy man and have not much time to keep myself informed of all these
matters. Lord Henry must be a younger son of the Marquis of Firle, is he
not?"

"He's the third and youngest son," replied St. Maur.

"And may I ask for details about the title;--you must think me
dreadfully ignorant!"

"Not at all, sir," St. Maur answered. "It is a Charles I. creation. They
are a Sussex family. As you probably know, Charles I. did not create
peers indiscriminately. The Stuart creations are, on the whole, a credit
to the monarchs who were responsible for them, particularly those of
Charles I."

Sir Joseph nodded politely, but looked as if this information did not
quite harmonise with his own conception of that prince.

"The fourth Earl of Chesterfield perhaps disgraced himself a little over
Dr. Johnson," St. Maur added, "but as a rule the families who owe their
rank to the Royal Martyr have upheld their great traditions with
singular success. And possibly against the case of the fourth Earl of
Chesterfield we may set that of the sixth Lord Byron, who gave us
_Childe Harold_ and _Manfred_."

Sir Joseph was genuinely interested. "Lord Henry is, I believe, a very
wonderful personality," he remarked.

"You are right, sir," replied St. Maur, "very wonderful."

The young man rose again. He was a little above medium height, with dark
crisp hair and a sallow complexion. His figure and features gave the
impression of metallic virility: they were at once hard, supple,
clean-cut, and finely moulded. His mouth was a little full, and his jaw
perhaps a trifle heavy, but the deep thoughtful eyes gave a balance to
his face which saved it from appearing unduly sensual.

"That is a pleasant young man," Sir Joseph declared, when St. Maur had
gone.

"Yes," Denis replied half-heartedly. He, too, had been impressed by St.
Maur, but not favourably. For Denis Malster, cultivated, sleek, and
refined though he was, just lacked that exuberance and vitality which he
had observed in St. Maur, and which made the latter so conspicuously his
superior. Denis had nothing to compensate him for his tame, careful,
Kensington breeding. St. Maur, on the other hand, had that fire and
warmth of blood, without which even the highest breeding is little more
than the extirpation of the animal at the expense of the man. Denis was
an easy winner with the women of his class, precisely because of the
parade which, in his face, nature made of his gentle antecedents; but he
had sufficient intelligence to realise that when women are confronted
by a man possessing all he possessed, besides that something more that
was noticeable in St. Maur the best of them do not hesitate a second in
selecting the St. Maur type.

"I wonder if that is all true about Charles I.?" Sir Joseph demanded
with a little irritation.

Denis leant back in his chair and his eyes twinkled. "I doubt whether it
is true of Charles I.," he said; "but it certainly isn't true of his son
and heir, for Charles II. used the peerage more or less as a sort of
foundling hospital for his various illegitimate offspring."

Sir Joseph smiled, as he frequently did, at his secretary's odd way of
summing up a case, and then quickly resuming his gravity, glanced
searchingly at Denis as if pondering whether the word of such a man
could confidently be taken against that of an Aubrey St. Maur. For some
minutes he paced the rug in front of the fire-place, his hands behind
his back, and his head bowed. At last he raised his eyes and looked more
affably than usual at his assistant.

"You know, Malster," he began, "I've been thinking for some time that
although you appear to take to this work less quickly than some men I
have had, you are on the whole trying your hardest--are you not?"

Denis, a little startled by the palpable injustice of this remark, rose,
and resting the points of his fingers lightly on the table, leant
forward. "Ye--yes, sir," he stammered.

"'Ow old are you?" Sir Joseph continued.

"Twenty-eight, sir."

Sir Joseph repeated the words. "How much are you getting?"

"Eight hundred, sir," Denis replied.

Sir Joseph turned sharply on his heel and slightly accelerated his pace
across the rug.

"H'm! Well, I propose to make it a thousand," he said thoughtfully.

Denis Malster smiled nervously. "Thank you, Sir Joseph."

"I propose to do this," continued the baronet, "because I think you must
be wanting to marry, and because I think it wrong that a man of your age
should be prevented from marrying owing to lack of means. D'you
understand? Only that!"

"I think it most considerate of you," Denis faltered again.

"Well, that's settled," said Sir Joseph drily. "But," he added, always
on tenterhooks of anxiety lest one of his staff should begin to think
too much of himself, "I should like you to be quite clear about my
reasons for the change. I don't want you to run away with the notion
that I am giving you a rise because I am entirely satisfied with your
work."

As he said this Sir Joseph resumed his seat, and pulled in his heavy
chair as smartly as he was able, with the air of a man who had neatly
achieved his object without abandoning the usual safe-guards.

It was a minute to six when the messenger announced Lord Henry Highbarn,
and the moment the announcement was made, Denis, reaching for his hat
and stick, took leave of his chief. He strode out into the street with a
sprightly gait, humming as he went:

    "I don't adore the girl in blue
    For all her family's after you."

       *       *       *       *       *

There is probably in most men a sense of quality, a power of divination
in regard to value which, on occasions when they are confronted by a
stranger whose worth they do not know, informs them immediately of the
comparative rarity or commonness of his type. This sense may at first be
baffled by the delusive disguises in which men sometimes present
themselves, but as a rule a chance word, an artless gesture, or even a
glance, quickly corrects the initial error of the eye, and in a moment
the original estimate is adjusted to the unmistakable evidence of a
definite quality.

When this peculiar apprehensiveness in regard to worth becomes aware of
any marked superiority in a fellow creature,--an experience which in
unhappy lives very seldom occurs,--a feeling of certainty usually
accompanies it, which is as mysterious as the evidence upon which it is
based is intangible and elusive. A man knows that he has met his
superior, he knows too how far the superiority he recognises extends,
and he is conscious of experiencing something exceptional, something
exquisitely precious.

That such encounters are becoming every day more rare, probably explains
the increasing growth, in modern times, of that kind of disbelief and
heresy which, far from being wanton, arises from a total inability to
envisage greatness, whether in kings, ideals, or gods. For we arrive at
our most exalted images, not by solitary flights of imagination
unassisted, but by actual progressive steps in the world of concrete
things; so that the spring-board from which we take our final leap into
the highest concepts of what a god might be, is always the highest man
we happen to have met. We can have no other starting-point. Hence in an
age when greatness among men is too rare to be felt as a universal fact,
a disbelief in all gods is bound sooner or later to supervene.

When Lord Henry Highbarn presented himself before Sir Joseph, it was
plain from the meek droop of the baronet's eyelids and the subdued
hesitating tone of his voice, that something in the young nobleman's
appearance had like a flash intimated to the experienced financial
magnate that here was someone of a quality as unfamiliar as it was rare.
Moreover, the difference which the older man felt distinguished him from
his visitor was of a kind too fundamental and insuperable to challenge
even that friendly rivalry so instinctive between two natures each
conscious of their own particular efficiency and excellence.

Indeed, it needed all the elaborate complications of our modern
civilisation to account even for the meeting of these two people under
the same roof, not to speak of the fact that they met on an equal
footing.

The one, a plain but not unpretentious man of business, still a little
perplexed by his stupendous success, and not yet certain of his precise
social level, revealed in his unshapely but kindly features the modest
rung on which Nature herself would probably have placed him, if the
peculiar economic conditions of his Age had not intervened to bring
about a different result; while two characteristics alone led one to
suspect his latent power,--his large energetic hands with their powerful
spatulate fingers, and his masterful and meditative dark eyes.

The other,--a tall, muscular, youthful-looking aristocrat, with deep-set
thoughtful blue eyes, a straight finely-chiselled nose, and a full
eloquent mouth (the whole overshadowed by an unusually lofty brow, from
which, particularly over the temples, the hair had noticeably
receded)--possessed that unconscious ease of manner and unassertive
masterfulness of bearing, which derive on the one hand from breeding,
and on the other from a constant habit of preoccupation with external
problems, that is unfavourable to any self-concern. As his alert vision
took in the details of his surroundings, including the person of Sir
Joseph himself, on whom he appeared to cast only the most casual
sidelong glances, it was clear that his mind, far from being occupied
with internal questionings, was measuring even then the probable extent
to which this visit might serve some ultimate important purpose upon
which the whole gravity and earnestness of his being seemed to be
concentrated; and if his solemn features occasionally relaxed into a
smile, it was precisely the habitual gravity of his mien that lent his
passing levity such extraordinarily persuasive merriness.

It was chiefly Lord Henry's air of preoccupation that set Sir Joseph so
quickly at his ease. For although the baronet was familiar enough with
the sons of peers and peers themselves,--for had he not a number of them
on his various boards?--there was, as we have seen, something more than
mere rank in his youthful visitor to disturb him.

While the first courteous platitudes were being exchanged, Sir Joseph
quietly took stock of his companion, and was for a brief moment a little
perturbed by the latter's unconventional attire.

We have noticed that though he was young, Lord Henry's hair receded a
little from his brow, and made it appear even loftier than it actually
was. Between the high bald temples, however, a wisp of stiff fair hair
still remained over the centre of the young man's forehead, somewhat
resembling that seen in the portraits of Napoleon, and with this tuft
his long well-shaped and sensitive fingers would play continuously
while he spoke, with the result that he constantly bowed his head.

Occasionally, therefore, when his customary gravity gave way for a space
and his face was irradiated with a smile or a laugh, an expression of
such irresistible and almost wicked mirth suffused his features, owing
to the upward glance he was constrained to give you from the bowed angle
of his head, that willy-nilly you were compelled to laugh with him.

Sir Joseph felt this; he was also aware of the peculiar charm of it; but
what struck him even more forcibly were Lord Henry's loose-fitting and
apparently badly cut clothes. Anyone else so clad would have looked
hopelessly dowdy, while the carelessly knotted green tie that bulged all
askew from beneath the young man's ample collar, seemed for a moment
almost offensive.

It was strange how the displeasure provoked by these shortcomings in his
attire gradually vanished beneath the steady persuasiveness of the
wearer's fascinating personality; and very soon not only had Sir Joseph
ceased from feeling their aggressiveness, but had actually begun to
associate them inseparably with the strange charm of the creature before
him.

"Mrs. Delarayne," said Lord Henry, "would give me no peace until I came
to see you, Sir Joseph, so you must forgive me for forcing myself upon
you in this way, and relying for your forbearance simply upon the
strength of the friendship you bear her."

He laughed, and Sir Joseph perforce laughed with him.

"'Ave you seen her lately?" the baronet enquired.

"She's always seeing me," Lord Henry replied, smiling in a manner that
was at once childishly winsome and wise. He was still startlingly
boyish, despite his thirty-three years, and though his slight baldness
added a few years to his face, he did not look a month older than
five-and-twenty.

"She is very fond of you," Sir Joseph proceeded earnestly, beginning to
feel, for the first time, not only that Mrs. Delarayne's infatuation was
clearly justified, but also that young St. Maur had probably been right
in his remarks concerning Charles I.'s creations. It was strange to
recognise the evidences of unusual wisdom in such a childish face; it
reminded him vaguely of what he had heard or dreamt of Chinese
mandarins,--evidently such phenomena were possible.

"She's an amazingly captivating woman," muttered Lord Henry, still
pulling at the tuft of hair over his brow. "Her blank refusal to accept
the fact of her advancing years is the most wonderful and at the same
time the most pathetic thing about her."

Sir Joseph, with an expression of deep curiosity, leant heavily over the
right arm of his chair, and stared expectantly at his visitor.

"She has not had her second decisive love affair, you see," Lord Henry
continued. "And every day she arrays herself to experience it,--that
second and decisive love affair which alone reconciles the best women to
old age and to snow-white locks."

Sir Joseph fidgeted. He did not understand, but thought he did. "Her
second and decisive love affair," he repeated,--"yes."

"We are apt to forget," continued Lord Henry, "that all deep, decently
constituted women have two definite relationships to man, one alone of
which is insufficient to satisfy them. The first is their relationship
of wife to the man more or less of their own generation whom they have
loved; the second is the relationship of mother to the man of their
children's generation, whom under favourable circumstances they
worship."

Sir Joseph shifted in his chair, raised his hand to his chin and looked
fixedly at the speaker.

"This last and most precious relationship is the only one that
reconciles a woman to her wrinkles and makes her happy in her grey
hairs. Without it she takes to peroxide, smooths out her wrinkles with
cream, and what is even more tragic, developes a tendency to pursue the
young men of her children's generation. People call it ridiculous,
lunatic,--so it would be, if it were not so nobly, so terribly
pathetic."

"But I have known women with grown-up sons behave exactly as Mrs.
Delarayne behaves," Sir Joseph objected with as much breath as he could
summon in his surprise at what Lord Henry had said.

"Not sons with whom they are in love," Lord Henry corrected. "Most
mothers have sons, but of these not all experience that great love for
one of their male offspring which is perhaps the most beautiful, the
most passionate, and the most permanent of earthly relationships. Mrs.
Delarayne is obviously a woman who would have been capable of such a
relationship had she only had a son."

"Is it only one particular son?" Sir Joseph enquired with an unconscious
note of profound humility in his voice.

"Always--yes!"

Lord Henry, still tugging at his wisp of hair, now turned to Sir Joseph,
and blinking very quickly, as was his wont when deeply absorbed in a
subject, contemplated the baronet for a moment in silence.

"Doesn't that clear up the problem of Mrs. Delarayne a little for you?"
he asked at last. "Believe me, few women care to admit that they are
thirty-five unless they have a husband whom they love, and still fewer
women resign themselves to their fiftieth year unless they are wrapped
up in a beloved son."

Sir Joseph, to whom Mrs. Delarayne, except for her repeated refusals of
his hand, had never been precisely a problem, demurred a little. "It
certainly sheds some light,--yes," he said slowly. "But don't you think
that a second great love with a man more or less of her own generation
is equally satisfying to a woman like that?"

"How can it be when it is simply a repetition of a former and thoroughly
explored experience?" Lord Henry replied. "I do not mean, mind you, that
great-hearted women who have not enjoyed that exquisite relationship to
a beloved son, are conscious that it is this circumstance which has been
lacking in their lives. Because precious little whatever is conscious in
the best women. But in their loathing and repudiation of advancing
years, and in their repeated attachments to men of my generation, such
women reveal to the psychologist the constant ache they feel from the
vast empty chamber in their hearts."

For some moments Sir Joseph played idly with an ivory paper-knife on his
desk. He had completely forgotten the object of Lord Henry's visit. It
was as if he had always known the man, and that they were just having
one of their usual pleasant chats after their work was done. Such was
the power that Lord Henry possessed of immersing his listeners in the
thoughts that occupied his mind.

"And this," continued the younger man, after a while, "is the only
consideration which makes me feel I ought to marry. I mean that it
almost amounts to wanton vandalism not to give a wife of one's choice
and a son of one's own begetting at least the chance of beautifying the
world by this most wonderful of all relationships."

"You are a poet," said Sir Joseph with that spontaneous penetration of
which the uncultivated are sometimes capable.

"If to understand Mrs. Delarayne a man must be a poet, then I am one,"
Lord Henry replied, smiling in his irresistible way.

Sir Joseph perforce smiled too, and the return to earth which this faint
levity signified, reminded him of the real object of the young
nobleman's visit. The thought did not reassure him, however; for after
all the intelligence he had been able to glean regarding his visitor's
character, he realised that if Lord Henry had resolved to undertake this
mission to China, it would obviously serve no purpose to exhort him to
change his mind. It was clear that Mrs. Delarayne could not have
understood the man she was dealing with; or, if she had, she must have
urged this step as a last hope.

As a forlorn hope it certainly appeared to Sir Joseph, and it was only
half-heartedly that he opened the attack.

"And now tell me about China," he said. "Have you quite made up your
mind?"

Lord Henry rose, thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets, and
paced the hearth-rug.

"I think so," he replied, musing deeply as he glanced from one to the
other of Sir Joseph's art treasures.

"But you are doing good here," the baronet protested feebly. "What good
will you do in China?"

"I'm not convinced that I am doing good here," Lord Henry rejoined
sharply. "That's precisely the point."

"But everybody says you are."

"No doubt."

Sir Joseph turned to his ivory paper-knife. He did not understand.

"If it's doing good," Lord Henry added, "to salve the nervous wreckage
that our unspeakable Western civilisation produces with every
generation; if it's doing good to render the disastrous mess which we
have made of human life possible for a few years longer, by bringing
relief to the principal victims of it; then, indeed, I am a desirable
member of society. But I question the whole thing. I question very much
whether it can be doing good to help this hopeless condition of things
to last one moment longer than it need."

Sir Joseph glanced up a little anxiously. "Are you serious?" he
enquired.

Lord Henry sat down again.

"Am I serious?" he scoffed. "Can you be serious, can you be sane, and
expect me to think otherwise? But you have been a great success by means
of the very system which is rotten and iniquitous to the core. How could
you sympathise?"

Sir Joseph stammered hopelessly that he was trying to sympathise.

"You are no doubt convinced," Lord Henry continued, "that all you are
witnessing to-day is what you would call Progress. And the further we
recede from a true understanding of human life and its most vital needs,
and the more we complicate the world and increase its machinery, the
more persuaded you become of the reality of your illusion. How could it
be otherwise?"

Sir Joseph expostulated ineffectually, and Lord Henry continued:

"Still, I am not a reformer," he said. "I do not wish to reform, even if
I could. It is not only too late, things are also too desperate. What I
chiefly want is to take refuge somewhere where humanity and its deepest
needs are the subject of greater mastery, greater understanding; so that
I can cease from being distracted by the immensity of modern error. No
great intellect, no great creative power can exist in this country;
because the moment it becomes conscious it is so obsessed by the shams
and the shamelessness that surround it, that instead of devoting itself
to the joys and enrichment of life, it feels impelled by the horrors on
every side to take up the social system and attempt to put it right.
This sterile pitfall is now the temptation of the greatest minds. Your
Shelley, your Coleridge, even your Byron,--what did they do? Menaced by
this same vortex of negative effort, sentenced to intellectual
annihilation if they attempted to straighten out the muddle of
modernity, they fled, or drowned themselves in water or opium."

He had ceased playing with his tuft of hair. His face was distraught
with indignation and with the bitterness of a thwarted love of mankind;
it was also illuminated by the distant dream of a world as he would have
it, so that though he brought down his fist on the corner of Sir
Joseph's table with some weight, the baronet was too much moved to
notice the gesture.

"Things are so bad," he pursued, lightly lowering his voice, "that to
have any genuine insight to-day, any special human feeling to-day, means
perforce to devote these gifts to the social problem, instead of to art
and to beauty. That is the curse of being born into this Age. The
gigantic ghastliness of modern Western civilisation successfully engulfs
every superior brain that comes to being in its midst."

Sir Joseph fell back limply in his chair. He acknowledged the game was
lost before the struggle had actually begun. How could he presume to
strike a bargain with such a man? He remembered Mrs. Delarayne, however,
and braced himself once more.

"There are times," Lord Henry began again, glancing kindly at Sir
Joseph, "when I feel that perhaps I ought at least to risk even my life
in order to do something here, in this country. But what is one man's
life in the face of this sea of blunders? What is even a giant's effort,
against the Lilliputian swarm of modern men who are determined to gain
the precipice?"

"I was hoping," said Sir Joseph quietly, "that I might make you an
offer which would induce you to abandon this mission to the Far East. I
was hoping, in fact, that I might help you."

Lord Henry glanced thoughtfully at the baronet and then shook his head.

Sir Joseph, more and more convinced that he was embarking on a hopeless
enterprise, persisted notwithstanding.

"I am prepared to put a considerable sum of money at your disposal," he
said. "I believe your sanatorium for nervous disorders in Kent is a
veritable public boon. I feel that I could not find a nobler public
object for my wealth than to support you in your work."

Lord Henry rapped his fingers on his knees impatiently.

"Could I not assist you in enlarging this establishment? Could I not
give it a permanent foundation or effect what alterations in it you may
suggest for its improvement and greater utility? If by the same token I
succeeded in retaining you in England, I feel I should in addition be
doing a personal service to someone, to a lady, for whom you and I have
a very deep respect."

Lord Henry blinked rapidly as he turned to face the old gentleman at his
side, and his smile was kind and courteous.

"If, Sir Joseph, my only motive in going abroad were indeed to transact
the business of the Society for Anthropological Research, I might
perhaps be induced to yield to the temptation you so generously put in
my way. But seeing that possibly my principal object is to give my
endowments a fair chance away from this whirlpool of confusion, which
makes social reform a morbid _idée fixe_, I cannot persuade myself that
it would be worth while."

"But supposing," Sir Joseph persisted lamely, "I gave you
_carte-blanche_ to extend your work as you liked?"

"And with what object?"

"I have told you the object," the baronet replied mildly.

"No!" exclaimed the younger man with emphasis. "The object would be to
add to the organisations which are springing up everywhere for the
purpose of making our impossible civilisation possible for at least a
little while longer. _That_ would be the ultimate object."

"How much would you require?" Sir Joseph suggested in his most melting
tones, still clinging desperately to his belief in the only bait he
possessed.

Lord Henry laughed despondently. "Only enough to purchase sufficient
dynamite to blow my present sanatorium skywards," he said. Then resuming
his gravity and rising, he extended a hand to the baronet.

"No," he added, "I'm afraid my mind is made up. I must leave this
country, Mrs. Delarayne or no Mrs. Delarayne. Thank you very much
indeed, all the same. I have seen you and enjoyed our talk. Mrs.
Delarayne's behest has at least been strictly obeyed."

"When will you be leaving?" Sir Joseph enquired, gracefully throwing
down his cards.

"In about three months' time, I expect."

"I am sorry, very sorry," ejaculated the baronet.

The two men walked gravely to the door.

On the threshold Lord Henry stopped, and looking methodically round the
room, pointed at last to one of the most beautiful of Sir Joseph's
Stuart cabinets.

"You also unconsciously acknowledge that there is something revolting
and intolerable about this Age, Sir Joseph," he said smiling
mischievously; "otherwise why do you use your wealth to surround
yourself both here, and as I understand at Brineweald too, with all the
treasures of art that were produced by our ancestors."

Lord Henry laughed again; his deep thoughtful eyes filled with the tears
of mirth, and he vanished from the room leaving Sir Joseph contemplating
his costly old furniture with feelings of utter bewilderment.




CHAPTER IV


Despite Sir Joseph's very careful reservations in regard to the
increase, which unsolicited he had thought fit to make in his chief
secretary's salary, Denis, who was perfectly well aware of his own
efficiency, was inclined rather to discount every feature of his
master's generous behaviour, except the covert tribute which he believed
it was intended to make to his invaluable services. He knew the business
man's instinctive reluctance to reveal his full appreciation of a
subordinate's worth, and felt he must allow for this. But, on the other
hand, in view of Sir Joseph's intimate relations with the Delarayne
household, he was unable altogether to dispel a certain lurking anxiety
concerning the baronet's very precise allusions to the question of
marriage, which it was hard to believe could have been altogether
gratuitous. This thought was disquieting.

Denis Malster, without being exactly an incurable philanderer, was
nevertheless insufficiently commonplace to contemplate marriage, in the
Pauline sense, as a necessity. He was much more disposed, at least for
the present, to regard it merely as a piquant possibility, towards which
his very attitude of indecision lent him an extra weapon of power in
his relations with the other sex.

His life, hitherto, had been enjoyable, he thought, simply because it
had been an uninterrupted preparation for marriage without the dull
certainty of a definite conclusion. To excite interest in the other sex
and envy in his own had, ever since he had been a boy of eighteen,
constituted the breath of his nostrils, the one spring from which he
drew his love of life and his desire to live. Immaculate in his dress,
adequately cultivated and intellectual in his speech, and carefully
punctilious in the adoption of such amateur pursuits as would be likely
to give him the stamp of artistic connoisseurship, he had until now
employed his ample income principally in furnishing his extensive
wardrobe, in collecting old books and prints, and in giving his chambers
that appearance of _outré_ refinement, which was calculated to force his
friends to certain inevitable conclusions concerning both his means and
the extent of his æsthetic development.

In the circumstances, therefore, it was difficult for him to regard the
addition to his income, which Sir Joseph had suddenly thought fit to
make, as anything more than a fresh means of indulging his various whims
to an even greater degree than he had indulged them heretofore,--those
whims which had by now become almost driving passions to the exclusion
of all else;--and he was certainly not in the least disposed to take
Sir Joseph at his word, and to embark upon that undertaking which he
knew would put an abrupt end to all the careless dalliance in which his
clothes, his fastidious speech, and his parade of artistic
discrimination played so effective a part.

Such were the thoughts that occupied his mind as he made his way from
Lombard Street to his rooms in Essex Court; and by the time he had
dressed for dinner and was waiting for a cab in the Strand, a look of
fixed determination had settled on his face which was indicative of the
firm resolve he had made.

In any case Sir Joseph could not expect him to marry immediately. For a
while yet, therefore, he would continue to enjoy the life so full of
secret triumphs which he had succeeded in leading ever since he had
entered the house of Bullion & Bullion, and from this day with the
additional pleasures that his increased income would allow. Had he not
been told by Mrs. Delarayne herself that a man should not marry until
flappers had ceased to turn round to get a second look at him in the
street? And was there not something profoundly wise in this advice,
although it had been pronounced in one of the old lady's most flippant
moods? A smile of complacent well-being spread slowly over his features
as he recalled this remark, and the last endorsement was mentally
affixed to his private plans.

What would Cleopatra Delarayne do? Charitably, almost chivalrously, he
imagined, he gave her a thought. Had he led her to hope? Undoubtedly he
had. But then he had not resolved never to marry; he had merely
determined to postpone the step _sine die_. Perhaps in a year or two he
would come to a definite understanding with Cleopatra. After all, she
was only twenty-five. She was an attractive girl, and she would be
wealthy. He felt that marriage with her would not be an uninviting
conclusion to another year or two of his present delightful existence.
Thus he satisfied his conscience and gratified his deepest wishes into
the bargain.

He dined alone at the Café Royal. It was a sultry evening, and London
was still stifling after a sweltering day. One had the feeling that the
roofs and masonry of the buildings all about were still burning, as
probably they were, with the heat of the sun that had been pouring down
upon them all day; and the big city seemed to breathe its hot dust into
the face of its inhabitants.

Having nothing better to do, he thought how pleasant it would be to
finish the day in Mrs. Delarayne's cool garden in Kensington, and
thither he betook himself after his meal, devoutly hoping that they
would be at home.

Cleopatra had evidently been half expecting him, for she appeared in the
drawing-room on the heels of the maid who had ushered him in, and gave
him a friendly welcome. Mrs. Delarayne had ensconced herself upstairs
and did not wish to be disturbed, and at that moment her penetrating
voice could be heard conducting what appeared to be a most lively and
acrimonious debate with someone unknown across the telephone. So on
Denis's suggestion they went into the garden and installed themselves
there in Cleopatra's favourite bower.

"Rather late for the Warrior to be upbraiding a tradesman," Denis
observed. "I wonder what she can be doing."

He had nicknamed Mrs. Delarayne "the Warrior" himself. He was sensitive
enough to apprehend the strong strain of courage in her character; he
had on several occasions been impressed by the tenacious boldness of her
claims to youth and by the energy she displayed in keeping up the
difficult part,--frequently entailing exertions out of all proportion to
her bodily vigour;--so he had nicknamed her "the Warrior." But this
sobriquet was used only when he and Cleopatra were alone together.

"The poor Warrior is peevish anyhow, you see," Cleopatra explained.
"Baby comes home to-morrow, and if there's anything that annoys mother
to exasperation, it is to have to cluck and fuss round her chick like an
old hen. She loathes it, and Baby always makes her feel she must do it."

Denis pretended to be interested only in a casual way. "What sort of a
girl is--Baby?" he asked. "Is she like you?"

"I suppose she is like me to the same extent that I am like the
Warrior," the girl replied. "But she's most like the Warrior herself.
Imagine my mother at the age of seventeen and you know my sister. Surely
you have seen that old photograph of the Warrior as a girl in the
drawing-room? It is simply Baby over again,--or rather _vice versa_."

"I must look at it," said Denis thoughtfully.

"In fact they are so much alike," Cleopatra proceeded, "that they know
each other inside out, and annoy each other accordingly."

"They don't get on well then?" he enquired.

"Oh, yes, but Baby's a little trying at times. You see, she will forget
for instance that we call mother Edith, and have done ever since father
died; and she will suddenly shout Mother! out loud on crowded railway
platforms, or at the Academy, or worse still at garden parties, which
always gives the Warrior one of those nervous attacks for which she has
to go to Lord Henry."

Denis started almost imperceptibly at the mention of Lord Henry's name,
and turned an interested face towards the girl. "Do you know Lord
Henry?" he asked.

"No, I don't. There are some men the Warrior knows whom she never
introduces to me. I feel as if I knew Lord Henry very well indeed, but I
have never met him."

"You haven't lost much," Denis snapped.

"I beg your pardon?" Cleopatra exclaimed, smiling kindly but
deprecatingly, and arching her neck a little, as she scented the
injustice behind his remark.

"He dresses abominably," Denis pursued, "and from what I can gather is
benighted enough to believe in our beheaded sovereign Charles I."

"He must be very able though," the girl objected. "It isn't often, is
it, that our aristocracy distinguish themselves? And d'you know that he
is a Fellow of the Royal Society entirely on the strength of his
original research into the subject of modern nervous disorders?"

Denis pouted and smiled with an ostentatious show of incredulity. "He's
the son of the Marquis of Firle, remember!"

"Oh, but I don't believe that's got anything to do with it--honestly!"
she retorted.

Cleopatra knew her mother as well as any daughter has ever known her
parent; she could have compiled a catalogue of Mrs. Delarayne's foibles
more exhaustive and elaborate than any that Mrs. Delarayne's worst
enemies could have produced; but, on the other hand, she had so often
found her mother a safe guide where her fellow creatures were concerned,
and had thus acquired so deep a faith in her mother's judgment, that it
was hard for her to believe that in the matter of Lord Henry the Warrior
could be mistaken.

She regarded her companion for some moments in silence. He was cutting a
cigar, and failed to notice that she was observing him.

Certainly he was very sleek and smart, and showed that perfect
efficiency in all he did which betokens general ability. What was it
then that gave her a little pang of doubt whenever she was moved by an
impulse to look up to him? His voice, it is true, was thin and a trifle
high-pitched,--always a bad sign in a man,--but she would have
overlooked all his shortcomings if only her craving to revere where she
loved had been sufficiently gratified. He was beyond all question the
best type of man who had hitherto paid her attention. Others, perhaps,
might have been more manly; but then they had been clumsy, heavy, and
puerile, and had, above all, lacked that air of complete efficiency
which was perhaps Denis's greatest asset.

She thought herself foolish for expecting too much from life, and
without any effort turned a kindly smiling face to her visitor.

"The Warrior!" he ejaculated suddenly, blowing sharp strong puffs from
his cigar; and he was either annoyed or made a good pretence of it.

Yes, there, indeed, was Mrs. Delarayne, stalking majestically up the
garden, and from the way she glanced rapidly from side to side, and
grabbed at her frock, it was plain that she was in none too pleasant a
mood.

Denis rose when she was about four yards from them.

She glanced quickly at Cleopatra, seemed to notice the perfect serenity
of both young people with marked dissatisfaction, rapidly recorded the
fact that her daughter's hair was utterly undisturbed, and smiled
grimly. "Evidently things have taken their usual course," she mused.
"He had not even attempted to kiss her!"

"Don't you think you two people are rather silly to sit out here doing
nothing?" she demanded irascibly.

"It's so delightfully cool," Denis protested.

"Yes, too cool!" snapped the old lady with a deliberate glance at her
daughter, which was intended to convey the full meaning of her words.

Cleopatra moved impatiently. Her mother always made her feel so
miserably defective, and this was hard to forgive.

Mrs. Delarayne settled herself elegantly in a wicker chair, took a
cigarette from a case, and snapped the case to with a decisive click.
She looked hot and a little tired, and as Denis proffered her a light he
noticed the beads of perspiration amid the powder round her eyes.

"I've had the most tiresome evening imaginable," she croaked.

"I thought so," said her daughter. "We heard you."

"Really men are most ridiculous cowards," she cried, frowning hard at
Denis. "There's Sir Joseph, for instance. He's failed ignominiously with
Lord Henry; has been unable to induce him to give up his absurd mission
to China, and instead of coming here to tell me all about it, he keeps
me thirty-five minutes brawling at him over the 'phone in this heat,
simply because he daren't face me!"

Denis stretched out his legs before him and clasped his hands at the
back of his head. This was a signal, well known to the women, that a
long analytical speech was to follow, and Mrs. Delarayne looked wearily
away, as if to imply before the start that she was not in the least
interested.

"It's all organisation nowadays," Denis began. "If you can organise your
machinery with the help of good subordinates, the trick is done. And
since Sir Joseph simply exudes lubricants, everything works smoothly and
successfully. He----"

"Don't talk of exuding lubricants in this weather, please!" Mrs.
Delarayne interrupted. "I suffer from the heat almost as badly as
butter."

It was becoming clear to Cleopatra that her mother was for some reason
intent on chastising their visitor, and she watched the interesting woman
before her with her filial feeling in almost complete abeyance. The
children of remarkable parents frequently do this after they have turned a
certain age. It is not disrespect, but merely absent-mindedness.

It was almost dark now, and Denis noticed Mrs. Delarayne's fine profile
outlined against the lighted rooms of the house. There was a sadness
delineated on her handsome, aristocratic face, which, as he had observed
before, was to be seen only when her features were quite still. Could
this apparently gay widow still be mourning her husband? Denis was
sufficiently romantic and ill-informed to imagine this just possible.

"So the interview between Sir Joseph and Lord Henry was a failure?" he
enquired trying to be sympathetic.

"Yes, of course," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined, flinging her cigarette into
the bushes at her side. "And I do so hate the idea of going out to
China."

Cleopatra laughed. "But, Edith, surely you don't really mean that you'll
go to China if Lord Henry goes?"

Denis glanced quickly at Cleopatra and in his eyes she read the
supercilious message: "People of _our_ generation could not be so
foolish."

"You don't flatter yourself, Cleo, I hope," Mrs. Delarayne retorted
icily, "that I say these things to amuse you and Denis, do you?"

Cleopatra signified by a glance directed at Denis that she did not like
the message in his eyes, and regretting the laugh with which she had
opened her last remark, she turned conciliatingly to her mother.

"I'd go with you, Edith dear, if you wanted me to," she said.

For the first time since he had made their acquaintance Denis began to
have the shadow of an understanding of the depth of these two women's
attachment to each other, and he bowed his head.

"Thank you, Cleo," Mrs. Delarayne replied after satisfying herself that
there was not a trace of insincerity either in the voice or features of
her daughter. "We'll see."

She rose, smoothed down the front of her frock with a few rapid
gestures, and turned to the younger people.

"Come on!" she said. "You and I cannot afford to lose our beauty sleep,
Cleo. Two hours before midnight,--you know the time, and it's now
half-past nine."

Evidently Mrs. Delarayne intended to be rude to Denis. Sir Joseph had
told her something across the telephone, and she had expected a result
which had not occurred.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following morning after breakfast Mrs. Delarayne as usual retired to
the bureau in the library where every day she devoted at least thirty
minutes to her housekeeping duties.

Silently on this occasion Cleopatra followed in her wake, and pretending
to be in search of a book, lingered in her mother's company longer than
was her wont after the morning meal. Book after book was taken down from
the shelves, perfunctorily examined and returned to its place. Once or
twice the girl looked towards her mother, possibly in the hope that the
elder woman would provide the opening to the subject that was uppermost
in both their minds. At last Cleopatra spoke.

"Baby comes home to-day," she said, in a voice strained to appear
cheerful.

Mrs. Delarayne looked up from a tradesman's book. "Yes," she sighed
wearily. "One of Sir Joseph's cars is coming to fetch us at half-past
two. The train reaches King's Cross at three. Will you come?"

"Of course,--rather!" Cleopatra exclaimed, taking down another book and
examining it cursorily.

There was silence again, and Cleopatra could be heard running quickly
through the pages of the volume she held.

"What is Baby going to do?" she asked after a while.

"Don't ask me!" exclaimed the mother.

"Haven't you any plans?" the daughter enquired with studied
indifference, her eyes wandering vacantly over the letter-press before
them.

"Plans--what plans?" ejaculated the old lady. "I suppose the poor child
will have to put up with us now. You don't suppose we can send her
gadding about the Continent again?"

"I didn't dream of any such thing!" Cleopatra protested a little
guiltily.

"No, I promised her that she should come home for good after the School
of Domesticity, and she expects it. You saw what she said in her last
letter."

"Naturally," Cleopatra added, closing her book and replacing it
hurriedly on the shelves.

"We'll have to put up with it--that's all, my dear. I hope she won't be
too trying. But you must really help me a little by taking her off my
hands, particularly on my Bridge and 'Inner Light' days."

Cleopatra cast a glance full of meaning at her mother, and quietly left
the room. She had heard all she wanted to hear.

       *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile, the subject of this conversation, ensconced comfortably in
the corner of a first-class carriage, was speeding rapidly towards
London.

Looking remarkably at her ease in a smart tailor-made frock of navy
serge, silk stockings, suede shoes, and a perfect summer hat trimmed
with bright cherries as red as her lips, she sat amid a farraginous
medley of newspapers, small parcels, and shiny leather traps, and
presented an attractive picture of a flourishing schoolgirl of
seventeen,--careless, mischievous, and keenly, though discreetly,
interested in everything about her;--but, perhaps a little too healthy,
and certainly too beautiful, to be quite typical either of the class or
of the kind of school from which she hailed.

Her large dark eyes, veiled by unusually long lashes, looked sharply at
you and then quickly turned away, with that air of mystery and secrecy,
and love of secrets at all costs--even mock secrets--peculiar to the
young virgin of all climes. Occasionally in glancing away they would
half close in a thoughtful smile, which, to the uninitiated, unaware of
the irrepressible spirits of their owner, was as unaccountable as it was
provoking.

There was an air of childhood still clinging, as if from habit alone, to
the outward insignia of maturity, in this mercurial, magnetic, and
undaunted young person; and in her malicious elfish eyes could be read
the solemn determination to force every possible claim that her double
advantage, as child and adult, could, according to the occasion, uphold.

Her thick dark hair did not hang down her back in the rich spiral curl
which is now becoming so common among schoolgirls; for that it was too
plentiful, too troublesomely luxuriant. It hung like heavy bronze in a
thick stiff plait--a badge both of her robust youth and the redundant
richness of her blood,--and at its extremity it was tied with a broad
ribbon of black silk. Beneath her hat, bold festoons of hair reached
down almost to her eyebrows, and to these portions of her coiffure she
constantly applied her soft shapely sun-tanned fingers, as if to
reassure herself that they were keeping their proper position.

The roguish expression of her face was partly due to pure health and
partly to wanton spirits, and her features possessed that exceptional
animation which, even in the simple process of eating a fondant,
produced the impression of extreme mobility.

Having long previously examined her fellow-passengers and judged them
uninteresting, she divided her attention between the fleeting landscape
at her side, a box of fruit creams, which she was consuming with grave
perseverance, and the contents of a pocket-portfolio, which she
appeared to be slowly sorting and weeding out. To everything she did,
however, to each one of her movements, she had the air of imparting so
much mysteriousness, so much elaborate secrecy, that she soon found
herself the object of the united attention of all her companions. And
occasionally when her fresh full lips parted in a smile at the things
she read, the old gentleman opposite her had to turn also to the
fleeting landscape as a prophylactic against the infection of her high
spirits.

She gave the impression of that aggressive vitality with which Nature
seems deliberately to equip her more favoured female children at this
age, as if to challenge the other sex to a definite attitude
immediately. A quivering freshness--the "bloom" of the poets--gave a
soft shimmer to her skin of which the powder of later years is such a
palpably poor travesty; her limbs were nicely rounded and not too
fragile; her teeth, like Cleopatra's, were perfect, and although she was
a trifle smaller than her sister, she was broad across the shoulders,
and well developed.

Leonetta, as we have already seen, knew that she was attractive; but she
did not know this fact as surely and unmistakably as--say, a philosopher
looking at her did. She probably knew that she was sunburnt, for
instance; but she was not aware of the depth which the dark natural
virginal pigmentation of her neck, eyes, and knuckles, lent to the warm
tanning of her skin. She did not know how prone the philosopher is to
associate the combination of these two rich colourings with the wicked,
dusky denizens of a tropical jungle--those creatures whose blood he
suspects of being something deeper than red, who really look as if they
were made from the earth and were going back to it, and who have nothing
of that translucent pallor suggestive of heaven-sent and heaven-destined
attributes.

She probably knew her dark eyes were fine and that their lashes were
long; but she would have been surprised and perhaps even a little hurt
if she had been told that their most striking feature was that, to every
man, modest and shrewd enough to divine all that they could exact, they
were terrifying. She knew her teeth were faultless; but she did not even
suspect the thrill of pained joy that went through the philosopher's
frame when he saw the life-hunger they revealed, and, what was more, the
full deep bite and fast hold they would take of Life's entrails. A young
girl's canines are self-revelatory in this respect. Let them be big and
prominent, as Leonetta's were, and the fastness of her hold on Life,
once she has bitten, promises to break all records. The sensitive
philosopher has little patience with your fair delicate misses with
small mouse-like canines. There are too many of them to begin with, and
they are so instinctively ladylike.

Perhaps the most amusing thing in this world is to watch the antics of
a large-canined virgin _de bonne famille_ who is trying to be a
lady,--by "lady" is here meant someone who, among other parlour tricks,
can perform the feat of "controlling" her feelings,--who has, that is to
say, on the one hand "control" and on the other hand "feelings," and
whose feelings are weaker than her control.

Leonetta's highly pigmented and sunburnt fingers suddenly ceased their
twofold activity with the box of fondants and the pocket-portfolio of
secret papers, and held a letter long and steadily before her eyes.
Again the old gentleman opposite turned to the landscape of fields on
his right, and his loose lips worked ominously. The fixity of those keen
eyes with their tell-tale slight inward squint, as she studied the
letter, proved too much for him, particularly when she began to smile;
and his glance wandered desperately to the country he was traversing, in
the cool, pallid British greenness of which he found relief.

Evidently the letter was a piece of life, for Leonetta was now in deadly
earnest, pinching her beautiful tawny neck thoughtfully here and there
with her free hand, as she read, and breathing deeply. Her glance
travelled rapidly, too, over certain passages, and would then stop dead,
sometimes in order to allow a smile to dawn, sometimes to wander a
moment to frown at the country-side. Evidently certain portions of the
letter were quite uninteresting, or else she knew them by heart.

The letter she read was as follows:

     "My own dearest Leo,

     "Oh, how I miss you already! But I shan't be the _only_ one!
     That's _some_ comfort. Think of church now without your
     dreadful remarks about all the still more dreadful people. I
     know one or two who are not going to church any more now.
     Don't you feel ashamed of yourself? Don't you ever feel
     ashamed of yourself? And the river on Wednesdays, and the
     _park_ on Saturday afternoons! The place will be dead. It
     will be a vast waste. You told me to make up to Dorothy
     Garforth. But she's not _you_. She'll never have the pluck
     to talk to strange young men about their motor bikes or
     their horses and things. You _were_ a wonder! Still my own
     dear Leo, you promised to invite me up to London to meet
     your people, didn't you, and don't you dare to forget. I
     shall pine away here if you do.

     "I must tell you something that happened last night. Well, I
     met Charlie as I was coming home from saying good-bye to
     you. He was desolate. You really have been a little cruel.
     He said you gave him back his match-box and gold pencil, and
     that that meant you did not want anything more to do with
     him. He said he had been waiting behind the usual shrubbery
     in the park for two hours, for a long last good-bye and that
     you never turned up. I know what you mean about him, that he
     isn't smart and clean and all that, but he is rather nice
     all the same. Almost the best we knew. I think the hair on
     his hands, as you pointed out, made up for a heap of other
     shortcomings in him. But I know what you mean. He's a little
     rough and there's an end of it. I thought of telling him to
     write to you; but then it struck me you would not like him
     to. He said you were a flirt, and that you would only have
     a rich man. I said it wasn't that a bit, that he had quite
     misunderstood you. I couldn't tell him the truth, could
     I?--that he wasn't altogether '_toothsome_,' as you call it.
     He said he had seen us talking to that motor-cyclist fellow
     in the park last Saturday, and that proved it. I said it
     proved nothing, because we did not know then that he was one
     of the wealthiest boys in the county. However he seemed very
     bitter.

     "Did you really give him so much encouragement? Of course
     men _do_ think it a lot if you let them kiss you. Aren't
     they stupid? They can't understand that even if one does not
     love them overmuch one wants to know what it's like. And you
     _did_ like pretending you were deeply in love, didn't you
     now?--all the time? I tell you who'll be glad you've gone,
     Alice Dewlap. She was sweet on Charlie long before you met
     him, because Kitty told me so.

     "Oh, Leo, you were a wicked creature, a regular godsend!
     What shall we do without you! _Do_ ask me to come soon.
     That's cool, isn't it? Asking for an invitation. But you
     know what I mean. Think of me in church next Sunday. Good
     Lord deliver us! Tell me what to say to Charlie if he
     bothers me about you again. And don't forget to tell me all
     that happens in London. Describe all the men you meet
     minutely,--you know to the smallest detail as you used to
     here. You taught me to notice heaps of things I should never
     have thought of.

     "Good-bye my dearest treasure-trove, with heaps of love and
     kisses.

                   "Yours for ever and ever,

                                          "Nessy."

The old gentleman lost sight of Leonetta during the lunch interval; but
when she returned from the restaurant car, slightly flushed, and her
eyelids lazily drooping, he concluded that she had probably partaken
heartily of the good fare provided, more particularly as a few stray
crumbs still clung about the corners of her lips, betraying to his
experienced eye the unconscious eagerness which healthy people
habitually show over their meals. Wisely he did not infer from these
evidences of a youthful and unimpaired appetite that she was slovenly in
her table manners, because the unmistakable gentleness of her upbringing
precluded any such possibility. The observation merely confirmed his
general impression of her, and left him pondering over the relationship
of daintiness to health.

Drowsily the girl re-opened the letter which she had been perusing
before the luncheon hour, and re-read it once or twice; then dropping it
listlessly upon her lap, she turned upon her fellow-passengers a look of
such guileless interest that they might have been excused had they been
moved by that compassion, so frequently unwarranted, for innocence on
the threshold of Life's great adventure.

The letter she held had been brought to her that morning by Vanessa's
maid. Leonetta and Vanessa had made friends the moment they first met,
and when Vanessa, duly qualified, had left the School of Domesticity,
about six months after Leonetta's arrival there, they had continued to
see each other outside its walls. There was a difference of only a year
in their ages, Vanessa being the elder; but the younger girl with her
greater keenness of vision, more exuberant health and spirits, and more
resolute unscrupulosity, had so carried the heart of the other by storm
that it was Vanessa, the provincial termagant, who looked up to and
worshipped her sister dare-devil of the Metropolis, and who watched her
for her every cue.

The train was nearing London; already the coquettish veil of smoke with
which the "hub of the Universe" conceals the full horror of her ugliness
from the eyes of critics, gave the summer sky a murky yellow tinge.
Leonetta yawned, glanced across the vast city which she hoped would
hence-forward be her home, and then suddenly recollecting that her
mother and sister would probably be at King's Cross to meet her, quickly
folded the letter that was lying on her lap and relegated it to one of
the interstices of her pocket-portfolio.




CHAPTER V


Leonetta was home again and the old house in Kensington felt the change
acutely. The stairs creaked in a manner almost indignant; doors which
for months had disported themselves with quiet dignity, manifested a
sudden and youthful tendency to slam; Palmer, the parlour-maid could
never be found, except at the heels of her youngest mistress, who seemed
to have requisitioned her entire services; while a fresh young voice, as
imperious as it was melodious, could be heard on almost every floor at
the same time, calling the stately rooms back to life again, and
shivering the cobwebs of monotony as it were by acoustic principles
alone.

The expression of the kindly maiden aunt, who, after having played for
some while with a boisterous and powerful young nephew, gradually
realises that he is becoming too rough for her, is, as everybody knows,
one of tremulous expectancy, in which a half-frightened flickering smile
plays only a deceptive and scarcely convincing part in concealing the
feelings of anxiety and disapproval that lie behind it.

Now there was, as we have seen, little of the maiden aunt in Mrs.
Delarayne's disposition, and yet this is precisely the expression which,
from the moment of Leonetta's arrival at King's Cross, had fastened upon
her features. It was the look of one who, though anxious to humour a
youthful relative as far as possible, was nevertheless determined that
the young creature's pranks should not be allowed to extend to
incendiarism, personal assault and battery, homicide, or anything
equally upsetting. It scarcely requires description: the brows are
permanently slightly raised, the eyes are kept steadily upon the
youthful relative in question in mingled astonishment and fear, while
there is the aforesaid agitated smile, which threatens at any moment to
assume the hard and petulant lines of impatient reproach.

Leonetta had quite properly insisted upon a completely new outfit. She
had not "unpacked" in the accepted sense. She had simply emptied her
boxes into the dust-bin. Some of her things, it is true, had fallen to
Palmer, and to Wilmott, her mother's maid, but very few of them, indeed,
had she been willing to return to her wardrobe or her chests of drawers.

No one could take exception to this procedure. It was perfectly right
and proper. It was the way it was done, as if it had been a forgone and
incontrovertible conclusion, that unnerved Mrs. Delarayne, and drove
Cleopatra, more abashed than indignant, to the quietest corner of the
house for peace and solitude.

Obviously Leonetta had as yet received no check from life, no threat of
an obstacle, or worse still a snub. Her pride pranced with an assurance,
a certainty, that was at once baffling and unbaffled. In the presence of
her sister's unbroken and unshaken will and resolute assertion of her
smallest rights, Cleopatra shrank as before the force of an elemental
upheaval. Her tottering self-confidence swayed ominously in the
neighbourhood of the younger girl, and it was with alarm and
helplessness in her eyes, that she sought a refuge where she could
breathe undisturbed.

In the library she dropped desperately into a chair, and her glance ran
nervously up and down the bookshelves, while her ears listened
stealthily for echoes of the voice that was subordinating the house.

She had forgotten during these blissful months how beautiful her sister
was. Some mysterious power in her, that found it easy to forget these
things, had even led her memory to form quite a moderate estimate of
Leonetta's charms in her absence,--even her sister's telling tricks with
her hair had been completely banished from her mind.

Cleopatra rose and walked to the fire-place. On the mantelpiece, she
knew, there was a photograph of herself at Leonetta's age. She felt she
wanted to examine this record of her adolescence. She was groping for
strength: she wished to fortify herself.

She drew the photograph towards her. No, she had not changed so very
much. Only something inside her seemed to have grown less tense, less
self-confident. Also, she had not had Leonetta's advantages,--advantages
that she herself had been chiefly instrumental in securing for her
younger sister. More arts than that of wielding the French tongue are
learned in Paris. Apparently she never had arranged her hair quite as
Baby arranged hers.

And then, all at once, the door opened, and she pushed the photograph
violently from her, so that it fell with a clatter on the marble of the
mantelpiece. It was her mother; and as the door opened and shut, the
sound of Leonetta's voice upstairs swelled and died away again.

"Oh, it's you," Cleopatra cried, setting up the fallen frame.

Mrs. Delarayne walked to the window, spasmodically drew back a curtain,
and then turned to face her daughter.

"She's amazingly high-spirited, isn't she?"

"Extraordinary!" Cleopatra exclaimed.

"Can you go with her to Mlle. Claude's to-morrow to order those frocks?
You see, I have my Inner Light meeting in the afternoon."

"She won't like it."

"What does it matter? She won't listen to my suggestions, so I might
just as well stay at home as go with her. She knows exactly what she
wants down to the last button."

"Then why can't she go alone?"

"Well,--I don't know," replied Mrs. Delarayne anxiously; "she might
perhaps feel that neither of us was taking much interest in her, don't
you think?"

"How much are you allowing her?"

"A hundred pounds."

"Edith!"

"My dear,--I could say nothing!"

"But I never had half that sum all at once."

"I know," sighed her mother wearily. "But you can have it now, or more
if you want it."

There was a loud drumming of feet, and the door opened.

"Oh, Peachy darling!" Leonetta cried, "you're the very person I wanted
to see, and I couldn't think what had become of you."

She was brandishing a paper of the latest Paris fashions in her hand as
she skipped to her mother's side.

"You see," she pursued, "this is what I want for my best evening
turn-out, I couldn't find it a moment ago." And she proceeded to
describe to her mother what the particular confection consisted of.

"Of course they do these things miles better in Paris," she added with a
pout.

"No doubt," said Mrs. Delarayne coldly.

"And they're not a scrap more expensive either," Leonetta continued.

"Possibly not," her mother rejoined. Then there was a moment's silence
while Leonetta ran rapidly through the newspaper in her hands.

At last Mrs. Delarayne spoke.

"Leo, darling," she began, "would you mind very much if Cleo went with
you to-morrow instead of me?"

Leonetta glanced up, scrutinised her mother and sister for a second, and
her brow clouded. "Oh, Peachy," she cried at last, "you are a worm!"

Mrs. Delarayne sat down, and fumbled nervously with a brooch at her
neck. She realised dimly that she ought to protest against being
addressed in this manner by her younger daughter and stared vacantly at
Cleopatra.

"You see," she said, "I have my Inner Light meeting."

"Your inner what?" Leonetta exclaimed contemptuously.

A slight flush crept slowly up the widow's neck, and she looked
hopelessly in the direction of her elder daughter.

Leonetta laughed. "Inner Light!" she cried. "Peachy, you are getting
into funny ways in your old age; now come, aren't you?"

A look of such deep mortification came into Mrs. Delarayne's eyes, that
Cleopatra herself felt provoked.

"There's no need to be rude, Baby!" she ejaculated angrily, not
realising quite how much of her anger was utterly unconnected with her
sister's treatment of their mother.

Leonetta glanced down at her paper in the thoughtful manner of a buck
about to butt. For the first time she had perceived clearly that much
of which she had not the smallest inkling must have happened during her
long absences from home, and that these two women,--her mother and
sister,--were united by strangely powerful bonds. Being an intelligent
creature, therefore, she decided to postpone the framing of her strategy
until she had learned more about the strength that seemed to be
constantly combining against her.

She raised her eyes at last, and looked straight into her sister's face.

"I can't think what makes you so dreadfully stuffy," she declared,
"surely there's no harm in what I said."

Mrs. Delarayne, who longed only for one thing--that the remark
complained about, with its brutal reference to her old age, should not
be repeated, and least of all discussed,--here interposed a word or two.

"No, my darling Leo, of course not. You come fresh from school; you are
full of new ideas and schemes; and we,--well, we've remained at home."

This observation was perhaps a little feeble, and it also constituted a
desertion of Cleopatra, but in any case it seemed to give Leonetta the
necessary hint, for she went quite close to her mother and began
smoothing her hair. "You must tell me all about the Inner Light some
time," she said, "it sounds ripping."

She glanced triumphantly at her sister as she spoke. Half of her action
had been completely unconscious. Obviously she felt the need of making
one of these women her friend, and instinctively she inclined to the one
who appeared to be the more powerful.

"Peachy darling," she continued, "don't you think this white satin frock
that the Claude hag is going to make me might be my coming-out frock? It
will be new for the early autumn."

Cleopatra gasped, and Mrs. Delarayne gave her a glance full of meaning.

"You see," Leonetta pursued, "it will be the best of the lot, won't it?"

Mrs. Delarayne drew Leonetta towards her with an affectionate gesture,
and smiled in that ingratiating manner so necessary to timidity in
distress.

"But I didn't know you were to come out this autumn," she protested
lamely, not daring to look at Cleopatra, whose attitude she only too
shrewdly divined.

"It's ridiculous," Cleopatra exclaimed; "I didn't come out until I was
eighteen. You know, Edith, you and father wouldn't hear of making it a
moment sooner."

"Yes, but things are a little different now," Leonetta interposed.

"It would be unfair, grossly unfair, Edith," Cleopatra protested, "if
you let her come out earlier than I did. Particularly as I did my best
to make you and father let me, and you both absolutely refused."

Leonetta was now gently stroking her mother's hair. She would not trust
her eyes to look at her sister.

"Well, Peachy," she said, "surely you can't make a fuss about six
months, whatever you say, Cleo. After all, I'll be seventeen and a
half."

"Any way," Cleopatra snapped, "it won't be right."

"But what can it matter to you?" the younger girl demanded, glaring not
too amiably at her sister.

Cleopatra's face coloured a little at this question.

"Oh, nothing," she replied, and she moved towards the door. "I don't
care what you do."

"Where are you going to, Cleo dear?" Mrs. Delarayne enquired in a voice
fraught with all the sympathy she could not openly express.

"I'm going out to get a breath of air," replied Cleopatra without
turning her head; and she swept out of the room, performing as she went
those peculiar oscillations of the upper part of her body, which are not
unusually adopted by young women who are very much upon their dignity
when they retire. The oscillations in question consist in curving the
body sideways over small obstacles, such as chairs and tables, at the
moment of passing them, as if with an exaggerated effort to combine the
utmost care with the utmost rapidity of movement.

Mrs. Delarayne rose and went sadly to the window. Her eyes, full of
self-pity, gazed with unwonted indifference at the passers-by. How
thankful she would have been to have Mr. Delarayne at her side at this
critical moment in her life. There were times when she was not
unappreciative of the many advantages of widowhood; but this was not
precisely the moment when the bright side of her peculiar situation
seemed to be conspicuous. With Leonetta home for good, and Cleo still
unmarried, she felt the need of help and advice; and it was significant
that, as she became more and more aware of the practical usefulness that
the late Mr. Delarayne might have had at this juncture, her thoughts
turned rather to Lord Henry than to Sir Joseph Bullion.

She must speak to Lord Henry. He would know how to direct her.

A sound in the room disturbed her meditations. Leonetta, having
concluded a further examination of the Paris fashions, had tossed the
paper on to the table.

"Peachy darling," she began, with slow deliberation. "May I have a
friend to stay with me?"

Mrs. Delarayne continued to gaze into the street. She did not like being
called Peachy. She had an indistinct feeling that it sounded
vulgar,--why she would have been unable to explain. Nevertheless, since
anything was preferable to being called "Mother" at the top of
Leonetta's strident soprano in the public highway, and for some reason
or other Leonetta would not make use of the name "Edith," she felt that
it would perhaps be diplomatic to say nothing.

"Who is she?" she enquired cautiously.

Leonetta was silent for a moment. It was not the question, but the
caution that dictated it, that struck the girl as strange.

"Isn't it enough that she is a friend of mine?" she observed.

"Quite, of course!" Mrs. Delarayne hastened to reply. "I only
meant,--what is her name, who are her people?"

"Vanessa Vollenberg," answered Leonetta.

"It sounds foreign," was the mother's quiet comment.

"As a matter of fact, it is."

"It sounds a little Jewish."

"She is a Jewess," Leonetta admitted.

Mrs. Delarayne purred approvingly over her remarkable display of
insight.

"She's very beautiful and wonderfully clever," Leonetta pursued.

"How old?"

"A year older than I am,--eighteen and a half."

"Jewesses are always pretty at that age," Mrs. Delarayne muttered,
glancing at her daughter furtively for a moment.

"Oh yes, I know," Leonetta replied with unexpected warmth; "and they
fade quickly afterwards. That's what everybody says."

It was clear that for some obscure reasons, she was very much attached
to Vanessa Vollenberg.

"But Mrs. Vollenberg," she continued, "is the most beautiful woman in
the world. She has been painted by every great artist in Europe. So she
can't have faded much."

"How long do you want Vanessa to stay?"

Leonetta suggested that her friend might go to Brineweald with them for
a fortnight; Mrs. Delarayne said that it might be three weeks if she
chose, and the girl bounded towards her mother and embraced her.

"Oh Peachy, my own Peachy,--that is sweet of you," she exclaimed, "you
are forgiven for not coming to the Claude hag to-morrow."

One of the points in Cleopatra's nature that greatly endeared her to her
parent, was that she scarcely ever kissed, and when she did so, it was
delicately, with a respectful consideration for her mother's facial
toilet. Moreover, she never, in any circumstances, disarranged her
mother's hair.

"Are they well off?" Mrs. Delarayne asked, easing a ringlet of hair
tenderly back into its position near her ear.

"If you mean the Vollenbergs," Leonetta answered, "they're as rich as
you and Sir Joseph knocked into one."

Her mother protested.

"Oh, very well. He owns a whole quarter of Hull, and has a West Indian
Copra business into the bargain."

Leonetta did not know what "copra" was, but she thought it sounded
sufficiently like a precious metal to suggest immense wealth.

Later in the evening, Mrs. Delarayne and Cleopatra were alone in the
former's bedroom.

"I have a feeling," Cleopatra was saying, "that I don't love Denis
sufficiently to go mad about him. You know what I mean: he may be the
best specimen of manhood who has ever crossed this threshold, but he
does not electrify me."

"That's very sound," her mother rejoined with unusual emphasis. "There's
no need to be electrified by the man one marries."

"Yes, but I feel that one ought,--I mean that seeing that I could,--you
know,--if one is going to be something to a man, one feels that one
would like to be electrified by him."

Mrs. Delarayne deposited her voluminous transformation lovingly upon the
dressing-table,--Cleo was such an intimate friend!

"Rubbish!" she ejaculated. "Romantic rubbish! How often have I told you
girls that provided a man can keep you in comfort and has a clean sweet
mouth, it doesn't matter a rap about anything else. Even if he has dirty
hands and finger-nails in addition, it doesn't signify;--there's the
English Channel and the Atlantic close by to wash them in. But if he
hasn't a clean, sweet mouth, a second deluge wouldn't wash it for him.
How can you attach so much importance to trifles, when in Denis you have
the two first prerequisites in an eminent degree? You are romantic, my
dear Cleo. And matrimony is a matter of flesh and blood. When the
demands of these are properly attended to, I assure you the rest is mere
foolishness. Denis can keep you in comfort, and he has the teeth of an
African negro. What more can you want? You cannot go on losing chance
after chance through these romantic notions."

"But surely," Cleo objected hopelessly, "a man ought to fire you with
something more exciting than the consideration of his means and his
dentition!"

"In our class," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined with gravity, "men no longer set
fire to anything. Get that out of your mind at once. Modern English
civilisation has entirely failed to produce men who can be at once
gentlemen and fiery lovers. We have wanted things both ways, and that is
why we have failed. We have wanted nice clean-minded men with whom we
could walk, talk, and play games freely. But that means men who can
exercise self-control. Now, of course, we are certainly free to enjoy
men as safe playmates all through our youth; but we are, I'm afraid,
also free to be bored with them as husbands for the rest of our lives."




CHAPTER VI


There are many people who would have considered Mrs. Delarayne a selfish
mother. Despite the fact that no man, woman, or child has ever yet been
known to perform an unselfish action, the superstition still holds
ground, that "selfish" and "unselfish" are two different and possible
descriptions of human life and action. Believing, as we do, however,
that no intellectually honest man can any longer attach any significance
to these words, it cannot be admitted in these pages that Mrs. Delarayne
was selfish. Neither was she at all conscious of any evil impulses when,
standing at the dining-room window on her "Inner Light" afternoon, she
watched her two children leave the house on their way to the "Claude
hag," as Leonetta called the lady. On the contrary, she felt wonderfully
free, exceptionally happy, profoundly relieved. The big house was
silent. She was alone. She even had to suppress the half-formed longing
that it might always be so.

She knew that Cleopatra felt no deep sympathy with any part of the
"Inner Light" doctrine, and she was convinced, before enquiring, that
Leonetta would sympathise with it even less. Although, therefore, she
expected a number of young men that afternoon,--Lord Henry, St. Maur,
and Malster, among them,--who might have interested her daughters, she
was not in the least conscious of having acted with deliberate hostility
in arranging so neatly that they should be out of the house when these
gentlemen came.

To explain precisely what the "Inner Light" meetings meant to Mrs.
Delarayne would entail such a long discussion of the relation of women's
religiosity in general to sex and to self-deception, that it would
require almost the compass of another independent treatise to deal with
it adequately.

In a word Mrs. Delarayne suffered, as a large number of modern women
suffer, from receiving no sure and reliable guidance from men. As a
widow this was, of course, incidental to her position; but she knew well
enough that there were thousands who still had their husbands, who were
no better off than she was. In addition to this, she had succumbed to
the influence of that absurd belief, so prevalent in cultivated circles,
that typical modern thought is superior to Christianity.

She felt the ease and peace of mind that resulted from having a belief
of some sort; but she would have regarded it as a surrender of principle
to return to Christianity; and, far from suspecting that most modern
thought, as manifested in the doctrine of the "Inner Light," for
instance, or Theosophy, or Christian Science, is inferior to
Christianity, she had become a member of the Inner Light, and paid its
heavy entrance fee of fifty guineas, with a feeling of deep pride and
satisfaction.

The doctrine of the Inner Light was an importation from America. It had
been introduced into England by a very intelligent, very tall, but very
delicate looking Virginian lady, about fifteen years before this story
opens. It had not spread very much, it is true,--its total number of
members in Great Britain amounted only to two thousand five hundred; but
it was all the more select on that account, and it was guaranteed by its
founders and by all who belonged to it, to be entirely free from those
"regrettable remnants of superstition which so very much marred the
beauty of the older religions."

It professed to recognise only one purifying and creative agent in life,
and that was Light. "The world was all darkness and death," said the
first prophet of the "Inner Light,"--an American named Adolf
Albernspiel, who had died worth half a million dollars,--"and then Light
appeared, and with it Life and the great lucid Powers: Thought, Spirit,
Order."

It was so obviously superior to Christianity, it commended itself so
cogently to the meanest intelligence, that the members of the "Inner
Light," try how they might to exercise the tolerance which is universal
to-day, could hardly refrain from a mild consciousness of superiority
when they looked down upon other creeds.

Thus the priests of the Order were not called "Fathers" or "Brethren,"
which implied a false anthropomorphic relationship to a supreme parent
"God"; they were simply "Incandescents":--Incandescent Bernard,
Incandescent Margaret, Incandescent Mansel, and so on. Again, in
allowing women to officiate at the altar of the Supreme Incandescence,
the doctrine of the Inner Light rose superior to Christianity. "Owing to
Judaic tradition and influence," as his Incandescence Albernspiel had
truly pointed out, "the Christian Church had never enjoyed the eminent
advantage of women's ministration. Even the Greeks had been wiser than
this. And thus much of an essential character in all true religion had
always been absent from Christianity, owing to this proscription of
feminine influence." (_The Doctrine of the Inner Light_, Vol. II., p.
1303.)

There was only one Temple in England, at which all the faithful met once
a year, and that was at Liverpool. It was hoped that other churches
would be built sooner or later in other big centres, but
meanwhile,--that is to say, pending the collecting of the necessary
building fund,--all the faithful outside Liverpool were recommended to
meet once a month at each other's houses, where one of the Incandescents
would hold a service.

The Incandescent for London was a pale and feverish looking little man,
Gerald Tribe by name, with false teeth and large, bony red hands, who
lived as a sort of non-paying guest at the house of Miss Mallowcoid,
Mrs. Delarayne's elder sister, at Hampstead. It was a perfectly orderly
arrangement, because, apart from the fact that he had his young wife
with him, he was in any case such a learned and pure-minded young man,
that, as Miss Mallowcoid declared, even if he had not been married, she
would have regarded it as a privilege to live under the same roof with
him. She admitted, of course, that his wife was so far beneath him as to
present an almost insufferable objection to the arrangement; but Miss
Mallowcoid regarded this creature as the trial and chastisement sent by
the supreme Incandescence, to bring both her own and Gerald Tribe's
inner light to ever greater prodigies of brilliance and power.

Miss Mallowcoid, who had been responsible for her sister, Mrs.
Delarayne's conversion to the Inner Light, was expected that afternoon,
as were also Sir Joseph Bullion, and all the London faithful. Lord Henry
had also reluctantly agreed to attend this one meeting after months of
persuasion from Mrs. Delarayne.

If Mrs. Delarayne had been asked why she had joined the cult of the
Inner Light, she would have probably replied that it was a simple
doctrine. Light was the beginning, Light would be the end. Life on earth
was simply the struggle of Light against Darkness. When you died, you
became one with the Eternal Incandescence. Age, old age,--and this was
the part that chiefly attracted Mrs. Delarayne,--_was simply the fatigue
incurred by battling with darkness_. When Light prevailed, as it would
in the other world, Age would pass away, _and everybody would remain
eternally youthful_.

Thus, far from feeling selfish or unselfish, Mrs. Delarayne was
conscious only of a sensation of supreme elation, as she watched her
daughters leave the house on that afternoon in July. She was even able
to contemplate their unusual beauty, which would have made them a credit
to any family, with unmixed feelings of pride as they walked down the
square, and she smiled as she noticed the eagerness with which Leonetta
strode ahead, just about half a pace in front of her sister. When she
turned away from the window, therefore, and once again surveyed the
large stately dining-room, with its row upon row of chairs all ready for
the meeting, she was conscious only of feeling supremely happy and above
all secure.

Lord Henry was to come at last. For months, in fact ever since her first
initiation into the Order, she had implored him to attend a meeting, and
now that her will had prevailed she felt confident that once he saw with
his own eyes the large number of distinguished people gathered that day
under her roof--all followers and devotees of the Inner Light,--he would
be forced to acknowledge that there was a good deal in it.

Among the first arrivals was Sir Lionel Borridge, the inventor of the
most up-to-date calculating machine, and a mathematician of renown. He
had a conical brow like a beautifully polished knee, and very sad eyes
which seemed to proclaim to the world that the study of mathematics was,
on the whole, a most harrowing occupation. With him came his aged wife
and spinster daughter. Both appeared to be over fifty, and, like the
head of their household, also deeply depressed by mathematics. These
three, looking so learned, looking so miserable with learning, were
surely the best evidence that could be advanced in support of the truth
of the Inner Light; for they were all convinced adherents of the Order.
Sir Joseph arrived punctually at three, the hour appointed for the
meeting. With him came Malster, and one of the junior secretaries of
Bullion Ltd., a certain Guy Tyrrell. Lord Henry and St. Maur came a
minute after time, and were followed by a phalanx of ladies of uncertain
age, with their Poms, their Pekinese, their Yorkshire and their toy
terriers.

Mrs. Delarayne's dining-room was filling rapidly. A buzz of
conversation, accompanied by the shuffling of the latest arrivals' feet,
began to pervade the large room, and necks were craned in tense
expectation of celebrities.

The philocanine Palmer was entrusted with the care of the legion of lap
dogs out in the garden,--for the religious meeting could not admit even
the most docile pet animal; and the sound of their spiteful yappings
could be heard through the open windows at the back of the room.

"You know, my dear," said Lady Muriel Bellington, who had brought her
Mexican hairless, "of course he is very, very naughty. And it's very
tiresome. But they are so minute, one couldn't beat them. It would be
really too too!"

Lady fflote, already purple with the heat, went almost black at the
suggestion of beating the Mexican hairless.

"Beat them!" she ejaculated. "Oh that would be very wrong. Oh no, you
couldn't bully them. Better far let them tyrannise over you. I should
never forgive myself."

In another part of the room Sir Lionel Borridge was leaning across Mrs.
Gerald Tribe, the delicate and emaciated wife of the Incandescent Gerald
Tribe, to address a word to Miss Mallowcoid.

"I think it possible, you know," he said very gravely, and looking the
image of the most unconquerable woe, "that I may be able to give our
minister certain mathematical facts, which I feel convinced are all in
support of the doctrine of the Inner Light. I was working at them with
my daughter last night,--the results are simply astounding--astounding,
that's the only word."

Miss Mallowcoid ejaculated, "Really! Really!" in a hushed, awed voice,
and then quickly proceeded to communicate the thrilling intelligence to
her right hand neighbour, who marvelled as reverently and as inaudibly
as she had done.

Sir Joseph, feeling a little bewildered, was asking Guy Tyrrell a
string of questions which this young man was quite unqualified to
answer, and both looked and felt extremely uncomfortable.

Lord Henry, who was seated in the second row from the front, between
Denis Malster and St. Maur, glanced round at the crowd behind him, and
frowned darkly.

"I think, you know, Lord Henry," said Denis Malster, noticing the young
nobleman's expression of angry scorn, "you do not allow sufficiently for
the fact that all of us have a subconscious inkling of the supernatural
behind phenomena, and these attempts on the part of the followers of the
Inner Light, of the Theosophists, or the Spiritualists, to realise the
nature of this supernatural basis to the material and visible world, are
all proofs of this subconscious inkling."

"I don't think," Lord Henry replied, "that you are sufficiently inclined
to allow for the fundamental fact, that mankind is very, very slow in
dropping an old habit. We are now, thank goodness, witnessing the slow
death agony of Christianity. These people here are among those who plume
themselves on having abandoned Christian dogma. But deep down in their
natures, there is not the inkling of the supernatural of which you
speak, but simply the religious habit,--the habit of believing in
something vague and indemonstrable, the habit of services and
congregational worship. And while they are dropping away from the old
Church in all directions, they simultaneously, from sheer habit, create
new-fangled creeds very much more absurd than anything the Church ever
taught, and not nearly so beautiful."

At this moment a hush suddenly fell upon the whole company, and Mrs.
Delarayne, who by virtue of her rôle as hostess, was officiating as
assistant to the Incandescent Gerald that afternoon, entered the room by
a small door at the back, followed by the minister.

Everyone stood up, and Lord Henry noticed that the venerable bald head
of Sir Lionel Borridge was bowed in humble reverence.

The service lasted about three quarters of an hour; even Sir Joseph
Bullion, who, as the latest of the elect, was the new broom of the
afternoon, was seen to gape once during the course of it; and when it
was over and a sort of blessing had been pronounced by the minister, the
whole company filed out of the dining-room into the library for
refreshment and also for the discussion of the meeting.

Everyone seemed intent upon reaching Mrs. Delarayne, and among those who
struggled most to achieve this end was Sir Joseph Bullion.
Congratulations were being pronounced on all sides. "How well she had
read the Articles of Faith!" "How clearly she had announced the hymns!"
"How cool and collected she was, and yet how reverent!"

Gradually the throng pressed less thickly about her, and Sir Joseph
reached his idol.

"Wonderful, Edith,--wonderful!" he whispered. "And what a beautiful
impressive service!"

Mrs. Delarayne grasped his hand, and even nodded, but her eyes were busy
elsewhere. She was watching the movements of Lord Henry, who had not yet
spoken to her, and who, apparently in animated conversation with Sir
Lionel Borridge, had hitherto held himself aloof.

"You wouldn't remember, of course," Sir Joseph pursued, "the arrival of
Baroness Puckha Bilj in London in the late eighties, with her doctrine
of 'Self-Exteriorisation.' The Inner Light reminds me somewhat of that.
We were her bankers. She was most successful."

"Your husband surpassed himself, Mrs. Tribe," said Denis Malster to the
emaciated wife of the Incandescent Gerald. Denis felt extremely superior
behind his solid Anglican Protestant entrenchments, and thought that he
could afford to be generous and even patronising to the members of a
struggling creed.

"Of course, Baroness Puckha Bilj had not your advantages," continued the
undaunted Sir Joseph. "She was already advanced in years when she left
Hungary."

"Have some cake?" said Mrs. Delarayne.

"I admit," Lord Henry was saying, "that a new religion is perhaps the
most urgent need of modern times; but then this Age is scarcely great
enough to make it."

"Come, come!" exclaimed Sir Lionel gruffly, his melancholy eyes closing
heavily as he spoke, "you are a little hard surely. Is not this your
first attendance here? I don't seem to remember having seen you amongst
us before."

Lord Henry apologised and turned away. He had noticed his hostess's eye
upon him, and he hastened towards her.

"Sir Lionel's conversation seems to have been singularly engrossing,"
remarked Mrs. Delarayne as he approached.

"It always amazes me," declared the young nobleman with laughter in his
eyes, "how the men of the so-called 'exact sciences' become involved in
our new emergency substitutes for a great Faith."

Mrs. Delarayne purred with a slightly treble note of dissent.

"Why not?" Sir Joseph demanded.

"I suppose it is the refuge of the mind that deals only with precise and
exact terms and rules, to plunge into the opposite extreme,--into blue
mistiness for instance. Or is it perhaps the fact that mathematicians
and physicists deal very largely with symbols, with abstractions as
opposed to realities, and that they therefore easily fall a prey to this
sort of thing?"

Sir Joseph shrugged his shoulders and tried hard to look wise.

"The worst of it is," Lord Henry pursued, "the adherence of a man like
Borridge, makes lesser men imagine that the creed to which he lends his
support, must have something in it."

Mrs. Delarayne contented herself with pouting, and casting a glance full
of distress signals at Sir Joseph.

But Sir Joseph appeared not to notice, and taking unnecessarily large
bites at a piece of cake he held, was evidently hoping to convey the
impression that a sudden and inconvenient access of appetite prevented
his opposing Lord Henry as violently as he might otherwise have done on
the subject of the Inner Light.

The occupants of the room were beginning to revolve in that purposeful
manner which augurs of leave-taking. People came up to shake hands with
their hostess, and gradually the library emptied. Only Denis Malster,
St. Maur, Sir Joseph, and Lord Henry remained.

Their hostess fidgeted uneasily. She wished to be alone with Lord Henry.
Gradually the others understood, and ultimately took their leave.

"Now quickly, explain to me," Lord Henry began severely, "why you have
anything to do with this arrant nonsense. Surely it would be more
dignified, more sensible to be a Christian again, than to lend your
support to this inferior modern bunkum?"

Mrs. Delarayne, with her elbow on the mantelpiece and her chin in her
hand, stood sulking and was mute.

"Good Heavens! The Inner Light!" He strode towards her. "Promise me
you'll give it up," he said.

"What for?"

That was her position. What for? What did he propose to offer in
compensation? His protection? His devotion? His love? Then the sacrifice
might be worth while. She bowed her head and smiled icily. She adored
this young man. This was the last weapon she believed she could still
wield against him. She was aware, perhaps, that the Inner Light was all
nonsense. The fact that he said it was made it abundantly probable to
her. But was it possible that the Inner Light might afford her a means
of bringing their relationship to its desired conclusion?

"A supremely intelligent woman like you," Lord Henry continued,
"--really! And the Incandescent Gerald! And hymn number 27----!"

"You may scoff," said the poor lady, feeling uncommonly hot, "but it all
means something to me."

"That is not true!" Lord Henry exclaimed. "You know it's not true. Oh,
and Lady fflote, and Lady Muriel. And Adolf Albernspiel--God!"

"Are you still determined to go to China?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded, her
voice faltering a little.

"As firmly as ever."

"Well, don't let us quarrel then," she said. "The time is short enough."

"Lord Henry," she began hesitatingly, as she pulled a marguerite to
pieces over the fender. "I asked you to stay for a few minutes because
I wanted to consult you on a very delicate matter."

He sat down facing her, and began to tug at the mesh over his brow. He
frowned and blinked rapidly, as was his wont when interested. He
wondered whether this charming and unhappy creature realised how
thoroughly he understood her.

"You know Leonetta is home again," Mrs. Delarayne continued.

Lord Henry nodded.

"She is rather difficult to manage."

He nodded again.

"She is so full of life, so eager, so--well, can you imagine me at
seventeen? Can you picture the mercurial creature I was, with every
sense agog, with every nerve on the _qui vive_?--a dreadful little
person in every way."

Lord Henry chuckled, and gave his forelock one or two unusually rapid
twists.

"Leonetta is if anything worse than I was," Mrs. Delarayne continued,
"for she is of this century. I belonged to the last one. D'you
understand?"

He bowed.

"She is vitality incarnate,--wilful, womanly, vain, beautiful,--not more
beautiful than Cleopatra, but more intrepid, more inquisitive, more
determined to live than her elder sister."

"Have you a photograph of her?" Lord Henry enquired.

Mrs. Delarayne darted across the room, and returned with a large framed
photograph which she handed to her visitor.

"There's the latest. It was taken a month ago."

Lord Henry examined it closely.

"Yes," he said, with his customary gravity in dealing with interesting
questions. "I see. I see now. Well?"

"Can you see the girl she is? Daring,--oh, and can I say it?"

Lord Henry looked up and blinked rapidly again.

"A little--a little----"

"A little inclined to temperamental precocity?" Lord Henry enquired.

Mrs. Delarayne, very much relieved, nodded quickly.

"That's exactly it,--that's just what I meant to say,--that's it
precisely. Oh how accurately that describes her!"

The elegant widow was uncommonly agitated and anxious. Lord Henry noted
her state of mind, and wondered what it signified.

"I feel--people tell me,--I feel I ought perhaps to tell Leonetta----"

"You are wondering," Lord Henry interrupted, hoping to help her,
"whether it is your duty to enlighten the child at all concerning----"

She sat down beside him. "Yes, I am," she said quickly.

"Has she asked any questions?" Lord Henry demanded, allowing his hand
for a moment to hang motionless from his mesh of hair and glancing up at
the cornice.

"No, I scarcely expect that," Mrs. Delarayne replied. "But in case. You
see Cleopatra was so different. I never had any difficulty with her. Her
reserve was always so rigid, I would have trusted her as a _cantinière_
in a barracks of Zouaves. I never spoke a word about anything to
Cleopatra. But Leonetta!"

"Yes, I see. You think Leonetta different?"

"What ought I to do? Do help me! Some say this and some say that. Some
say that a mother should speak; some say that they never did, and they
don't see why I should. My sister, Miss Mallowcoid, you know, says I
ought to."

Lord Henry gave vent to an expletive of contempt.

"I'll do what you say;--only what you say," said the harassed matron,
resting a hand on his.

"You should begin, my dear lady," Lord Henry replied, "by utterly
distrusting all the nonsense the modern world says on this subject."

"But I do,--I don't! I mean, I pay no heed to what anybody says but
you."

A shadow from the Inner Light passed across Lord Henry's mind; but that,
he rightly imagined, was the widow's last little fortress against him.

"The bond that unites parent to child is a very precious one," Lord
Henry continued. "It is, however, as brittle as it is precious. A
trifle will snap it. Now there is one aspect of the relationship between
parent and child, the physical aspect, the physical relation, which lies
beneath a sort of sacred seal: it is deliberately never fully realised;
it does not require to be fully realised, particularly by the child----"

Mrs. Delarayne nodded quickly and smiled.

"Think of the havoc you may create, through yourself breaking this seal
by calling this delicate aspect into prominence, by discussing with your
child all those matters which, as between you and her, by virtue of your
relationship, are a closed book!"

"Yes, I see, I see," cried the widow quickly. "My feelings, my
instincts, were always against it from the very start, and I see now
that I was right."

"The modern world is immensely stupid; few of us know how immensely
stupid it is. Everything that modern thought expresses, on this subject,
particularly, you must feel sure therefore is utterly and radically
absurd. You cannot afford to weaken the precious bond that unites you to
your children; therefore do not attempt this business."

"Yes, I see. Yes, you are right. I feel you are right."

"It can only lead to the most acute embarrassment as between parent and
child,--however well it is done;--and you would do it admirably, I
know. Unfortunately, when one is embarrassed one is not at one's best
for understanding. Consequently the whole proceeding, besides being
dangerous, would be utterly futile."

Mrs. Delarayne pressed his hand. "It is at times like these," she burst
out a little tearfully, "that I think of you going to China, and all
that."

He rose.

"One minute," she said, turning eyes glistening with tears pleadingly
upon him. "You have not told me what to do."

"The natural and proper thing," he replied, "is to keep her well in hand
and then to trust her to her husband. The good husband is the best
hierophant."

"Yes, I understand," said Mrs. Delarayne rising also.

"They master these things better on the Continent than we do in
England," Lord Henry continued. "The young girl is carefully supervised,
scrupulously watched, and a good husband is entrusted with the rest.
That is by far the best."

"Yes," Mrs. Delarayne exclaimed, laughing in her old way for the first
time that afternoon, "but then, you see, they happen to have the
Continental husband to whom they can entrust the matter."

"True," Lord Henry replied. "Never mind. We must try to find her someone
who is as like a Continental husband as possible."

"St. Maur is a most fascinating boy," Mrs. Delarayne observed.

"Ah--hands off Aubrey, at least for the present. He's not ripe yet,"
said Lord Henry; and in a moment he was gone.




CHAPTER VII


A day or two later,--that is to say on the Saturday before Sir Joseph's
evening At Home in honour of Leonetta's homecoming,--Mrs. Delarayne
herself gave a dinner party, to which a few of her more intimate friends
were invited. Sir Joseph, of course, was among the guests, as were also
Denis and Guy Tyrrell. For some reason, into which she made no effort to
enquire, however, Mrs. Delarayne did not ask Lord Henry.

On the afternoon of the day in question, Leonetta, after her tea,
ensconced herself in the library and wrote the following letter to her
friend, Vanessa Vollenberg:

     "My Sweetheart,

     "It is Saturday and we are having a dinner party this
     evening, and I'm feeling awfully excited. Things are
     particularly slow here on the whole. I have scarcely spoken
     to a man since I addressed my porter at King's Cross four
     days ago. Isn't it rank? What mother and my sister Cleo do
     with their men I can't imagine, unless they think they are
     better out of harm's way. I know they know heaps of men.

     "By the way, talking of keeping out of harm's way, you
     remember you used to tell me at school that if I looked long
     enough at a young man with my dark eyes he would get
     sunburnt,--well, the day before yesterday a very funny thing
     happened. I was in the train with poor old Cleo (she's grown
     a most appalling old maid, by-the-bye), and there was a
     young man opposite who really looked a most awful devil. You
     know, he had those wicked eyes that go up at their outside
     corners like tigers'. He was heavenly. I simply couldn't
     take my eyes off him, and he kept looking at me. Cleo said
     very stuffily (she's always stuffy with me), 'Don't stare!'
     and he must have overheard, because he turned away, and
     there was a most devilish curl on his lips. If we hadn't got
     out at the next station, I'm sure we should have ended by
     smiling at each other quite openly. You know, he was one of
     the sort who one guesses has got good teeth before they even
     open their mouths.

     "Some men are coming this evening, thank God! But what
     they'll be like Heaven alone knows! I have hopes though,
     because mother always did have a sweet tooth for rather nice
     men, you see father was tremendously attractive. But what
     poor Auntie Cleo's choice will be I daren't think. One of
     the men is supposed to be earmarked for her.

     "Oh, and now listen. Peachy--that's my mother--insists upon
     your coming to our place at Brineweald for at least three
     weeks during the summer holidays. Oh, Nessy, my heart's
     love!--what a joy to see you again! So you will come, won't
     you? I told Peachy you could play a good game of tennis, and
     now she insists on your coming. So mind, no refusal. You
     must tell your dear mother she simply must spare you, and
     there's an end of it.

     "Thank you a billion trillion times for your absolutely
     divine letter. But I cannot write about all you say, I'm too
     excited as it is. When can you come? Then we can talk. Oh
     for another long talk with my wise and wicked Nessy.

     "Now listen! We leave for Brineweald in about ten days. Can
     you join us in about a fortnight from now? We might have
     gone at once, but I must have some clothes. And it seems to
     me that it will take all my time to get them before we
     start.

     "Oh, and now another thing (and this is very, _very_ secret,
     so secret that you must _swear_ you'll tear up this letter
     _at once_, the moment you have read it). You remember you
     and the other girls used to laugh at me at school about my
     brown neck and my brown eyelids, and my brownish knuckles.
     You used to chaff me and tell me it was because I hadn't
     washed. Well, you were all wrong, and I told you at the time
     you were all wrong. I have just been reading a most
     interesting book, all about these things (but you must never
     let Peachy know about it, as it is one of father's and I
     have been reading it on the sly). Remember you've sworn to
     tear this letter up. In any case it explains all about my
     brown neck and my brown eyelids and knuckles. It calls it
     'Pigmentation'--the '_pigmentation of the mature virgin_.'
     Isn't it interesting? So you see it was quite natural; and I
     can't help it; on the contrary it shows I am very vigorous.
     So you were all wrong--even Miss Butterworth who said I was
     afraid of cold water.

     "But I'll forgive everything to my sweet Nessy if only, _if
     only_ she will come to the bosom of her love at Brineweald.

                 "With crates of kisses,

                                "Yours ever,

                                        "LEO."

     "P.S. Excuse this short scribble. I must go to dress. Tell
     Charlie that if he has not kissed that horrid Dewlap girl
     yet, I send him a nice long kiss. By-the-bye, he's such a
     blind fool, he won't have noticed she bites her nails. _Do_
     tell him!

                                    "Yours LEO."

This letter written, sealed, and stamped, Leonetta put on a
tam-o'-shanter, and ran to the post with it; whereupon hurrying
upstairs, she burst violently into her mother's bedroom, to announce
what she had done. It was half-past six and her mother was dressing.

Now Mrs. Delarayne's toilet, as may be imagined, was an unusually
elaborate and skilful business. Every corner of her large bedroom seemed
to offer its contribution towards the final effect. The bed, the chairs,
and even the mantelpiece participated in the process, while cupboard and
wardrobe doors stood ominously open.

Mrs. Delarayne's maid Wilmott,--silent, grave, preoccupied and
efficient,--moved hither and thither, calmly but quickly, her head
discreetly bowed, her voice more subdued than at ordinary times, as if
she were officiating at a rite; and gradually, very gradually, the
business proceeded.

Facing a corner of the bedroom, with a large window to her left, Mrs.
Delarayne sat before her dressing-table, upon which, towering above the
forest of bottles, brushes, boxes, and other paraphernalia, stood a
large triple mirror, which enabled the elegant widow to get three
different aspects of her handsome face at the same time.

The expression upon Mrs. Delarayne's face when she peered into this
formidable reflector of her own image was scarcely self-complacent or
serene. It was rather studious, anxious, critical, almost fierce, like
that one would expect to find on the face of an ancient alchemist
contemplating an alembic of precious compounds. Year in, year out, ever
since her gradually waning youth had begun to add ever fresh
complications to her once rapid and easy toilet, Mrs. Delarayne had
faced herself with this determined and defiant expression on her
features, resolved to overcome every difficulty and every undesirable
innovation of time. Slowly the complex equipment had grown up. Now it
was so extensive, that it required all the dexterity and knowledge that
habit alone can impart, in order to master and understand its
multitudinous intricacies.

In this mirror, then, when her expression was at its fiercest in
intentness and concentration, she saw her daughter enter the room behind
her, and for an instant a spasmodic frown darkened her already lowering
brow.

"I cannot see you now, you know that, Leo darling," she hastened to
exclaim as sweetly as possible, while her daughter was still on the
threshold.

"All right, Peachy,--I shan't keep you a moment."

A slight flush crept up the mother's neck just below her ears,--this was
a thing Cleo had too much delicacy to do. Cleo never disturbed her while
she was dressing,--and she straightway stopped all operations and laid
her hands resignedly in her lap.

"Well, be quick," she said, with ill-concealed irritation. "What is it?"

In the glass she could see her daughter's quick and intelligent eyes
wandering all about her with the deepest interest, and resting here and
there as if more than usually absorbed, and she frowned again.

Meanwhile, Leonetta, who had not seen her mother's bedroom, particularly
the dressing-table, at such a busy crisis for many years, and who, when
she had seen it in the past had been too young to grasp its full
meaning, was too eagerly engaged scanning its imposing array of creams,
scents, powders, oils, salves, cosmetics, tresses of hair, and other
"aids," to be able to remember what she had come for, and simply stood
there like one fascinated and spellbound.

"Quick, child! can't you see you're wasting my time?" her mother
ejaculated irascibly. "Besides, you've got to get dressed too!"

This was an unfortunate remark. It brought out more vividly than was
necessary, the immense contrast between her own and her daughter's
toilet, and before she had time to think, Leonetta had replied.

"Oh, I've got heaps of time. It doesn't take me a moment. I'll race you
easily, even now."

Then a thought entered Leonetta's mind, which, to her credit be it said,
she resisted at first, but which was too overpowering to be completely
banished. It struck her for a moment that there was something faintly
comical, almost pathetically ridiculous, in this elderly matron taking
such laborious and elaborate pains to make herself attractive. Try as
she might, Leonetta, from her angle of vision of seventeen years, could
not repress the question: "What was it all for? What was the good of it
all? Who could possibly care? Was the end commensurate with the
exhaustive and exhausting means?" As the fierce light from the window
beat down upon her mother's face, it seemed so old, so wondrously old,
that all the formidable machinery of beautification about the room
struck a chord of compassion in the flapper's breast, which was,
however, at once compounded with humour in her mind. And then she could
control herself no longer, and was forced to smile,--one of those broad
mirthful smiles that are parlously near a laugh. Feeling, however, that
her mood was one of derision, she turned quickly aside,--but not soon
enough successfully to evade her mother's observant scrutiny.

Mrs. Delarayne was too well aware of the awkward possibilities of the
situation, and moreover too acutely sensitive generally, to be in any
doubt as to the meaning of her younger daughter's amusement, and the
flush beneath her ears spread to her cheeks. Simultaneously, however,
her handsome face seemed suddenly to grow wonderfully stern and
composed, and her eyes flashed with the fire which every woman seems to
hold in reserve for an anti-feminine attack.

"Wilmott," she said quietly, "will you leave the room a moment? I'll
ring when I want you."

Without even turning round to satisfy her curiosity, the well-trained
servant dropped on to the corner of the bed the things she held in her
hands, and was gone.

For some unaccountable reason Leonetta at the same time felt a tremor of
apprehension pass slowly over her, and her hands grew icily cold. She
could feel her mother's masterful will in the atmosphere of the room,
and glancing tremulously askance at the widow's unfinished coiffure,
every line of which seemed crisp with power, walked over to the
hearth-rug.

Mrs. Delarayne's redness had now vanished. She was if anything a little
pale, and she turned to face her daughter.

"I am not angry, Leo," she began with terrifying suavity, "but I felt I
really could not explain all these things to you,"--she waved a hand
over the mass of articles displayed on the dressing-table,-- "in front
of Wilmott. You see, servants have to take these things for granted
without explanation."

Leonetta felt her ears beginning to burn furiously. Her mother could be
terrible.

"Yes, you see now," continued the widow, "how worrying and how difficult
are the means which I have to use to make myself presentable. Age is a
tiresome thing, is it not? It is so much more simple when one is young."

The invincible "Warrior" smiled kindly, and saw that tears were
gathering in her daughter's eyes.

"Would you perhaps like me to go through these things with you, and
explain them to you one by one?" she continued. "I have had to learn it
all myself. I might save you a good many pitfalls in the remote future."

Leonetta's throat was dry, and her lips were parched.

"No, thank you," she replied hoarsely, and she made quickly towards the
door.

"You have not told me what you wanted to say," said her mother
playfully.

"I'll tell you later on," rejoined the girl in broken tones.

"Then will you please ring for Wilmott?" said Mrs. Delarayne, turning
calmly to face her mirror again.

And after savagely pressing the bell, the flapper vanished.

With her eyes blinded by stinging tears, and feeling very much more
maddened by regret than by mortification, Leonetta fled to her room. She
was not only staggered, she was also thoroughly ashamed. A boy suddenly
butted by a lamb, which he had believed he might torment with impunity,
could not have felt more astonished. A convert brought face to face with
the livid wounds which, in her days of unbelief, she had inflicted upon
a Christian martyr could not have felt more deeply dejected and
penitent. Like a flash, an old emotion of childhood had filled her
breast; an old emotion that seemed only to have gathered strength in the
intervening years,--that blind, unthinking and dependent love of the
infant for its mother.

Should she go back and throw herself at the wonderful woman's knees?
Should she set out her plea for forgiveness in the folds of her mother's
dress as she had done as a baby? No, Wilmott would be there,--Wilmott
and everything besides! Moreover,--she looked in the glass,--her face
was distraught, her ears flared, her eyes still smarted horribly. Even
if Wilmott were dismissed as before, the girl would guess something.

Slowly she proceeded with her dressing, and, as she did so, a certain
vague delicacy of feeling, a sort of secret reverence for her brave
youth-loving mother downstairs, kept her from glancing too frequently in
the glass. The contrast now, instead of elating her, simply accentuated
her reminiscence of guilt. The very speed with which she adjusted her
hair and made it "presentable," as her mother had expressed it, brought
back the cruel memory of what had happened only a few minutes
previously.

In being thus affected by Mrs. Delarayne's able and perfectly relentless
handling of a difficult situation; in feeling her love for her mother
intensified backwards, so to speak, to the degree it had attained in
infancy, as the result of the incident, Leonetta showed not only that
she was worthy of her incomparable mother, but also that she had
survived less unimpaired, than some might have thought, the questionable
blessings of a finishing education.

Mrs. Delarayne who, without being truculently triumphant, was
nevertheless mildly conscious of having scored a valuable and highly
desirable point, repaired to the drawing-room twenty minutes later in a
mood admirably suited to giving her guests a warm and hearty welcome.

Cleopatra was the first to join her. Each woman honestly thought that
she had rarely seen the other look quite so beautiful, and the comments
that were exchanged were as sincere as they were flattering.

Mrs. Delarayne was too loyal to betray one sister to the other, so she
did not refer to the incident in her bedroom. Occasionally, however,
thoughts of it would make her glance a little anxiously in the direction
of the door, and as she did so, she fervently hoped that the lesson she
had administered to her younger daughter had not been too severe.

"I wonder what Baby can be doing all this time!" Cleopatra exclaimed at
last.

"I'll go and see, I think," said Mrs. Delarayne, lifting her dress just
slightly in front, and making towards the door.

"No, Edith," her daughter exclaimed, rising quickly. "I'll go. I cannot
have you making yourself hot by climbing all those stairs. Please let me
go!"

Mrs. Delarayne's wiry arm braced itself as her hand clasped the handle
of the door. "I think I'd better go," she replied.

For the first time Cleopatra began to suspect that something had
happened. She knew the relations existing between Leonetta and her
mother, but as the latter had always been so surprisingly patient and
long-suffering, she was very far from suspecting what had actually
occurred.

Their hesitation was cut short for them by the arrival of the first
guest, Sir Joseph Bullion, who, a moment later, was followed by Denis
Malster, Guy Tyrrell, Agatha Fearwell and her brother Stephen (friends
of Cleopatra's), and Miss Mallowcoid.

The last to enter the drawing-room was Leonetta. She had evidently
dreaded encountering her mother and sister alone, and she had purposely
waited till she heard the guests arrive before coming down. Although to
those who knew her there were certain unusual signs of demurity in her
expression and demeanour in the early part of the evening, she presented
a dramatically beautiful appearance, and the sober reserve of her mood
if anything enhanced this effect, by lending it the additional charm of
mystery and inscrutableness.

Cleopatra was a little puzzled. Never had she expected that Leo would
behave in this way, particularly in the presence of young men, and her
feeling towards her sister underwent a momentary revulsion. She noticed
that Denis scarcely took his eyes off her sister; but she also observed
that Leo hardly ever responded, and simply talked quietly and demurely
on to Guy Tyrrell or Stephen Fearwell. She could not understand, nor did
her deepest wishes allow her to suspect, that her sister's delightfully
sober mood was only a transient one.

During the dinner a slight diversion was created by Leonetta's
addressing her parent as "Mother." But the poor child was so confused
when she realised what she had done, and particularly when she thought
of why she had done it, that everybody except Miss Mallowcoid
endeavoured to ease the situation by being tremendously voluble.

After what had occurred between herself and her mother, the cold and
distant appellation "Edith" did not spring naturally or spontaneously to
Leonetta's lips. On the other hand "Peachy" seemed to belong to another
and previous existence. She did not wish her mother to suspect,
however, that she had used the term "mother" with deliberate intent to
annoy.

"That's right, my child," cried Miss Mallowcoid. "It is really
refreshing to hear one of you girls, at least, addressing your mother in
the usual and proper fashion!"

Leonetta with her cheeks ablaze, glared at her aunt menacingly.

"Well, I don't like it," she blurted out. "It was a slip of the tongue.
Cleo and I much prefer the name Edith."

She spoke sharply and even rudely, seeing that it was her aunt she was
addressing, but Mrs. Delarayne, who was beginning to understand the
penitential spirit she was in, smiled kindly at her notwithstanding.

"I always look upon them as three sisters," Sir Joseph exclaimed
somewhat laboriously, "whatever they call one another."

Miss Mallowcoid scoffed, and Mrs. Delarayne patted his hand
persuasively. "You get on with your dinner," she said playfully.

Meanwhile Miss Mallowcoid had not taken her vindictive eyes off her
younger niece, and the latter in sheer desperation plunged into an
animated but very perfunctory conversation with her right-hand
neighbour, Guy Tyrrell.

It is time that this young man should be described. He was the type
usually called healthy and "clean-minded." He loved all sports and all
kinds of exercise, particularly walking, and he could talk about these
out-of-door occupations fairly amusingly. He was fair, blue-eyed,
clean-shaven, and healthy-looking, and he believed in the possibility of
being a "pal" to a girl,--particularly if she happened to be a flapper.
His age was twenty-seven.

It is not generally understood what precisely is implied by the so-called
healthy "clean-minded" unmarried Englishman of twenty-seven, or
thereabouts. As a rule the epithet "clean-minded" sums up not merely a
mental condition, but a method of life. It signifies that the young man to
whom it may justly be applied is either a master, or at least a lover, of
games, that his outlook is what is known as "breezy," that he observes the
rules of cricket in every relation to his fellow creatures, and that he is
capable of enduring defeat or success with the same impassable calm and
good-nature. Now it would be absurd to deny that here we have a very
imposing catalogue of highly desirable characteristics; it would, however,
be equally absurd to claim that the person in whom they are all happily
combined, necessarily displays, side by side with his mastery of games and
his deep understanding of cricket in particular, that mastery or
understanding of the mysteries of life, that virtuosity in the art of life,
which would constitute him a desirable mate. There is a _savoir faire_,
there are problems and intricacies in life, which no degree of familiarity
with cricket, no vast fund of experience in the football field, can help a
man to master; and it is even questionable whether a young man's ultimate
destiny as a husband and a father, far from being assisted, is not even
seriously complicated by the extent to which he must have specialised in
games and sports in order to earn for himself the whiteflower of
"clean-mindedness." It is the wives of such men who are in a position to
throw the most light on this question. There is no doubt that they
frequently have a tale to tell; but the best among them are naturally
disinclined to admit the very serious reasons they may have for disliking
the silver trophies that adorn their homes.

As the dinner wore on, animation waxed greater; Sir Joseph dropped an
ever-increasing number of aspirates, and Leonetta was actually heard to
laugh quite merrily.

Cleopatra still noticed that Denis was very much interested in her, and
also observed that, from time to time, Leonetta now responded to his
attentive scrutiny.

The conversation turned on gymnastics. Denis, Guy, and Leonetta all
seemed to be talking at once; it was a subject that Cleopatra did not
know much about.

"We always had three quarters of an hour's gym a day," said Leonetta,
looking straight at Denis.

He laughed. "Oh, well," he exclaimed, "you have done me. I haven't
touched parallel bars or a trapeze for ten years."

"Neither have I," Guy added.

Thereupon Leonetta allowed Guy to feel the muscles of her arm.

"Iron!" he ejaculated, while Cleopatra looked on with just a little
surprise.

"You might at least say steel," she interjected, trying to sustain her
rôle as one of the juveniles at table.

In the midst of a very prosy conversation with Sir Joseph and Miss
Mallowcoid, Mrs. Delarayne found opportunities enough to watch the
younger people, and she was not a little relieved to see the cloud
gradually lifting from Leonetta's brow. She knew that in the
circumstances she had not been too hard, and gathered from a hundred
different signs that her relationship to her younger daughter had been
materially improved by what had occurred.

Later on in the drawing-room, before the men arrived, however, Leonetta
seemed to suffer a relapse into her former mood of excessive sobriety,
and it was then that Miss Mallowcoid beckoned her niece to her.

"I think you were unnecessarily cross with me at dinner," Mrs. Delarayne
overheard her sister saying.

Leonetta pouted, and with an air of utter indifference turned to
Cleopatra.

"I think Guy Tyrrell rather tame, don't you? It was most awful uphill
work talking to him all through dinner."

Cleopatra held up a finger admonishingly. "You seemed to be talking
animatedly enough," she said.

"Yes," Leonetta began, "all about photography, walking tours, and things
that don't matter--" Then she felt Miss Mallowcoid's huge cold hand on
her arm.

"Leonetta dear, I said something to you a moment ago," lisped the
elderly spinster. And again Mrs. Delarayne looked up to try to catch her
daughter's reply.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Bella," said the girl, "but really one does not usually
expect to be congratulated on a slip of the tongue, and your--" she
burst out laughing.

Mrs. Delarayne thereupon resumed her conversation with Agatha Fearwell,
as she was now satisfied that Leonetta was both thoroughly recovered and
satisfactorily reformed.

"But I did not congratulate you, I--" her aunt persisted.

"Oh, well," Leonetta interrupted, "it really isn't worth discussing."

In any case it was not discussed, for at this juncture the men appeared.

They distributed themselves anything but haphazardly; Sir Joseph, for
instance, seating himself by the side of his hostess; Denis Malster
between Leonetta and her sister, and Guy and Stephen, as their
diffidence suggested, as remotely as possible from the younger women of
the party.

"Now, Leonetta," Sir Joseph began, "tell us something about your school
life. You are the only one amongst us who has just come from a strange
world."

Leonetta laughed. "Yes, a very strange world," she exclaimed.

Sir Joseph laughed too at what he conceived to be a most whimsical
suggestion.

"And did you 'ave nice teachers?" he pursued.

"Miss Tomlinson, the history mistress was my favourite," replied the
girl.

Denis remarked that he did not know they taught history at a school of
Domesticity.

"Yes, you see," Leonetta replied, "the history of the subject. Cookery
since the dawn of civilisation, or something desperate like that."

"Was she nice?" Sir Joseph enquired.

"I thought so," answered the girl, "though she wasn't beautiful. You
know, she had that sort of very long chin that you feel you ought to
shake hands with."

Sir Joseph laughed and made all kinds of grimaces at Mrs. Delarayne,
intended to convey that Leonetta was indeed a chip of the old block.

"That's unkind," said Miss Mallowcoid.

Denis Malster threw out his legs and clasped his hands at the back of
his head preparatory to making a speech.

"The heartlessness of flappers!" he murmured. "This is indeed a subject
worthy of elaboration. Why is the flapper usually heartless?"

Mrs. Delarayne was quick to perceive the unpleasant possibilities of
developing such a theme, particularly in view of what had happened
earlier in the evening, and, seeking to save Leonetta's feelings, she
valiantly tried to change the subject.

"Well, in any case," she said, addressing Leonetta, "you are none the
worse for it, my dear. Two years ago you were such a tomboy you could
scarcely get out of the door without chipping a piece off each hip; and
now----"

"Yes, now she chips pieces off other people," interposed Miss
Mallowcoid.

Leonetta, however, was not attending. Her eyes were for the moment
fastened on Denis Malster. He had known how to say just the very thing
to provoke her interest. He had as much as declared that she was
heartless. He,--a man,--had said this. It was like a challenge. She, who
felt all heart, or what the world calls "heart," was strangely moved.
How could he say such a thing? This was the last remark she would have
expected from any man. Her curiosity was kindled, and with it her
vanity.

She noticed, as her sister had noticed before her, that he was
efficient, well-groomed, smart of speech, passably good-looking,
independent at least in bearing, hard, at least in appearance, and
possessed of a certain gift of irony that could act like a lash.

She began to think more highly of him; in fact the recollection of his
last remark actually piqued her now she thought of it again. At last,
for sheer decency, she had to look away from him, and as she did so,
she observed that Cleopatra averted her eyes from her.

There was a stir in the company. Agatha Fearwell was going to sing, and
Miss Mallowcoid went to the piano.

The performance was not above the usual standard of such amateur
efforts, and at the end of it the singer was vouchsafed the usual
perfunctory plaudits.

Thereupon Sir Joseph requested a song from Cleopatra. This apparently
necessitated a long search in the music cabinet during which all the
young people rose from their seats. At last a song was found; it was a
sort of French folk-song entitled _Les Épouseuses du Berry_.

As Cleopatra turned to join her aunt at the piano, however, a spectacle
met her eyes which, innocent as it appeared, was nevertheless fatal to
her composure.

Denis Malster and Leonetta, facing each other in a far corner of the
room, with heads so close that they almost touched, and with hands
tightly clasped, were playing the old, old game of trying the strength
of each other's wrists, each endeavouring to force the other to kneel.

It was harmless enough,--simply one of those very transparent and very
early attempts that are almost unconsciously made by two young people of
opposite sexes, to become decently and interestingly in close touch with
each other.

Cleopatra's first feeling was one of surprise at Leonetta's being so
wonderfully resourceful in engaging the attention of men. When, however,
she observed the details of the contest,--the closely gripped hands, the
fingers intertwined, the palms now meeting, now parting, and the two
smiling faces, Denis Malster's rather attractive figure, appearing to
tremendous advantage now, she could not quite see why,--a feeling of
uncontrollable alarm took possession of her, and she spread her music
with some agitation before her aunt.

Miss Mallowcoid played the opening bars, and still the contest in the far
corner did not stop. Denis was not even aware that she--Cleopatra--was
about to sing.

At last Mrs. Delarayne, who had not been blind to what was taking place,
felt she must interfere. Cleopatra's first note was already overdue.

"Leo, Leo, my dear," she cried, "your sister is going to sing to us."

Leonetta turned round, said she was sorry, released her hands, and she
and Denis joined the seated group at some distance from the piano.

The incident, however, was not over yet; for, just as her sister sang
her first note, Leonetta, her eyes sparkling with excitement, and her
hands discoloured by the struggle, ejaculated loud enough for everyone
to hear, "Denis, you're a fibber. Your hands are like iron too!"

Mrs. Delarayne put a finger to her lips, but it was too late. There was
a sound of music being roughly folded up, and Cleopatra turned away
from the piano.

"If you're all going to talk," she said, looking a little pale, "it's no
use my singing, is it? I can wait a moment."

"Sorry, old girl," Leonetta cried. "It was only me. I'm dumb now."

Mrs. Delarayne had risen and was urging her elder daughter back to the
piano. Sir Joseph was also trying his hand at persuasion, and when Miss
Mallowcoid and Agatha added their prayers to the rest, Cleopatra at last
spread her music out again, and the song began.

Those, however, who know the swing and gaiety of _Les Épouseuses du
Berry_, will hardly require to be told how hopeless was the effect of it
when sung by a voice which, owing to recent and unabated vexation, was
continually on the verge of tears. Nothing, perhaps, is more thoroughly
tragic than a really lively melody intoned by a voice quavering with
emotion, and even Sir Joseph, who did not understand a word of the song,
was deeply grateful when it was all over.

Mrs. Delarayne made determined efforts at restoring the natural and
spontaneous good cheer which the party appeared to have lost, but her
exertions were only partially successful, and although Agatha Fearwell
and Cleopatra sang other songs, the recollection of that tragico-comic
_Les Épouseuses du Berry_ had evidently sunk too deeply to be removed.

That night, as Cleopatra was taking leave of her mother, in the latter's
bedroom, she lingered a little at the door.

"What is it, my darling?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded. "Do you want to ask
me something?"

"Yes, Edith," Cleopatra replied slowly, looking down at the handle she
was holding. "I am perfectly prepared to admit that Leo did not perhaps
intend to be offensive over my song, although, of course, as you know
she ruined the whole thing; but anyhow, do you think that she has any
right, so soon after meeting him, to call Mr. Malster 'Denis'? Isn't it
rather bad form?"

Mrs. Delarayne sighed. "Very bad form, my dear, very bad form," she
replied. "Of course, I admit, it's very bad form. But for all we know,
he may have asked her to do it. You see, both you and I call him
'Denis,' and I suppose he thought it would sound odd if Leo did not
also."

Still Cleopatra lingered. She wanted to say more, and Mrs. Delarayne
divined that she wanted to say more. The words, however, were hard to
find, and, at last, bidding her mother "Good-night," she departed only
half comforted.




CHAPTER VIII


Lord Henry felt he had done his best for England, and now his mind
turned covetously towards a country and a clime where his best promised
to yield richer and better fruit. He had mended society's nervous wrecks
so long that he had come to look upon the whole modern world as a
machine too hopelessly out of gear to repay his skilful efforts.

"People who never sit down to a meal with an appetite," he would say,
"people whose bodies are as surcharged as their houses with superfluous
loot, cannot hope to be well, physically or spiritually. We live on an
island huddled together, and yet we grow every day further apart. For
the acquisition of superfluous loot means incessant strife. The worst
sign of the times is that abstract terms no longer mean the same thing
to any two people. Individualism is thus destroying even the value of
language. Because where each man has his individual view a common
language itself becomes an impossibility. The effort of the Middle Ages
was to convert Europe into a single nation. The effort of the modern or
'Muddle' Age, is to convert each single nation into a Europe. That is
why abstract terms are slowly losing their value as the current coin of
speech."

St. Maur had attached himself to Lord Henry as a kind of voluntary or
honorary secretary. He assisted his master where and when he could, and
felt that he was more than adequately repaid in the enormous amount he
learnt from him.

"Is there no remedy?" he demanded seriously on a day early in August,
when the prospect of losing his friend was weighing more heavily than
usual upon him. The two were sitting talking in the study of Lord
Henry's cottage which stood in a lane off the London road, about two
miles north of Ashbury, where his sanatorium was situated.

"There is a remedy, of course," replied Lord Henry. "It would consist in
uniting modern nations afresh by means of a powerful common culture. It
is only then that men can be guided and led, for it is only then that
they can understand what they are taught about life and humanity. In the
Middle Ages a common culture was so universal, that even the barriers of
nationality did not prevent men from understanding one another. Now
there is such a total lack of a uniform culture that men of the same
nation speak an unknown tongue to one another. That is the recipe for
stupidity."

"But cannot this new uniform culture be created?" St. Maur insisted.

"It would mean a great new religion," Lord Henry answered. "And we are
all too much exhausted for such a stupendous undertaking. New religions
depend in the first place upon the belief in great men, and where are
the great men of to-day? Only those whose coarse impudence has made them
forget their limitations start new religions nowadays. And look at the
result!"

"There are enough of them at all events," suggested St. Maur.

"Exactly,--their number is the best comment on their futility."

"But surely the effort, general as it is, shows that people agree with
you, and feel the need that you see and recognise?"

"Yes, but the arrogance with which they pretend to supply the need
themselves, is the best proof of how deeply they misunderstand the
gravity of their plight. Look at these Theosophists, Spiritualists, and
members of the Inner Light,--mere cliques, mere handfuls of uninspired
and uninspiring cranks. They'll never spread a uniform and unifying
culture. They cannot therefore make language once more a common currency
for thought."

Aubrey St. Maur had endeared himself to Lord Henry chiefly by the
inordinate beauty of his person, his exuberant health, and his modesty.
He was wealthy and the only son of a wealthy father. All the "loot" of
the de Porvilliers had come to him through his mother, and to Lord
Henry's surprise had failed to turn his head. On the contrary, it had if
anything filled him with a feeling of guilt, or perhaps that which is
most akin to guilt--obligation. And he had long wondered how best he
could discharge this obligation to the world. In Lord Henry's company he
had elected to find a solution to this problem.

But Lord Henry did not want the youth to join him on his journey to
China. The love the young nobleman still felt for his native country
bade him leave this promising member of it, if only as a forlorn hope,
to prove to Englishmen that here and there, at ever more distant
intervals, their blood was still capable of producing something that was
eminently desirable.

"You will succeed your father in the Upper House," he said to St. Maur
on this occasion, when the latter expressed the desire to become a pious
mandarin, "and you will, I trust, be an example of health and wisdom to
all. The faith in blood and lineage wants people like you. There is so
precious little to which it can be pinned nowadays."

"That's all very well," protested St. Maur. "But you are deserting the
battlefield, and leaving an unfledged pupil in charge. Is this nothing
to you? Are you incapable of becoming attached to anybody? Without
fishing for compliments, is it nothing to you to break our friendship in
this way?"

Lord Henry, who as usual was curling his mesh of hair with his fingers,
cast a sidelong glance full of meaning at his friend and smiled.

"My dear boy, if it hadn't been for you," he said, "I should not be
here now. Do you suppose it amuses me to investigate the unsavoury
details of every society lady's nervous affliction? Do you suppose I'm
flattered by such and such a Guardsman's encomiums when I have cured his
stammer, or his inability to proceed beyond the letter 'P' when writing
a letter?"

"What is your real purpose in going to China?" persisted the younger
man. "I shan't divulge. Can't you tell me?"

"In the first place, my dear boy," Lord Henry replied, "curiosity. I
honestly want to see how Chinamen have escaped the madness that is
overtaking Europe. Secondly, I have a heart, and I love my country, and
I cannot witness my country's decline. Thirdly, and chiefly,--but this
is a secret,--I feel that now it is the duty of all enlightened Western
Europeans, who have seen the madness of European civilisation, to hasten
to the last healthy spot on earth and to preach the Gospel of
Europophobia,--that is to say, to warn the wise East against our
criminal errors, and to save it from becoming infected by our diseases.
If the world is to be saved, a _cordon sanitaire_ must be established
round Europe and everything like Europe; for Europe has now become a
pestilence."

St. Maur who had been standing at the window with his back turned to his
friend swung suddenly round, his face illumined as if by an inspiration.

"By Jove," he cried, "that is an idea! That is indeed a crusade! I
hadn't thought of that!"

"It is the only beneficent direction in which I feel I can use my
powers," said Lord Henry gravely. "It is, if you will, my religion. I
feel I am called to be a missionary to the East, to preach the solemn
warning against Western civilisation."

"God!" St. Maur exclaimed, "that's an idea with which to fire a
generation. It is a new gospel; a new gospel of sin and the Devil."

"I assure you," Lord Henry rejoined, "the bulk of the men at my club
would not turn a hair at the suggestion. They would simply turn their
papers over, nod significantly at each other, and whisper, 'The fellow's
not all there.'"

At this moment Lord Henry's man, Fordham, entered the room.

"Yes?" his master grunted from the depths of his chair.

"A lady to see you, my lord," replied the man.

"I'm out."

"That's what I said, my lord."

"Well?"

"The lady said that was all nonsense; she 'ad called at the Sanatorium,
and they'd said you was 'ere."

"Then her name's Delarayne," said Lord Henry.

"Yes, that's it, my lord."

"Very well, then, show her up."

"That woman's a wonder," St. Maur exclaimed. "It is a boiling hot day;
at any moment there may be a storm; there was probably no fly at the
station,--there never is when I come,--and she must have walked the
whole of the two miles in the dust. She has an eye on you, my friend."

"Yes," said Lord Henry, "and by the time a woman has her eye on you, she
usually has her claws in you as well. You needn't go," he added, as he
noticed St. Maur preparing to leave. "But she's an admirable woman. Good
taste amounts almost to heroism in these women who battle with age until
their very last breath."

Mrs. Delarayne, if anything more regal and more youthful than ever, but
certainly showing signs of having taken violent exercise along a chalky
thoroughfare, stepped eagerly towards Lord Henry.

"My dear Lord Henry," she began, "so good of you to be in only to me.
But oh, I felt I must see you before leaving town."

She turned and shook hands with St. Maur, and Lord Henry moved an easy
chair in her direction.

"Oh, that's right; give me a chair, quick!" she gasped. "I'm
broken--broken in body and spirit."

Lord Henry asked the expected question.

"Only this," she said, "that my life soon won't be worth a moment's
purchase."

"You are tired," suggested her host. "You don't look after yourself."

"It isn't that," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined. "Nobody takes greater care of
themselves than I do. I go to bed every night at ten o'clock precisely,
and read until half-past two. What more can I do?"

Lord Henry blinked rapidly, and surveyed her with an air of deep
interest. "And you say you are leaving town?" he enquired.

"Yes, I'm taking my family to Brineweald, you know. It is my annual
penance, my yearly sacrificial offering to my children. It lasts just
six weeks. By the end of it, of course, I am at death's door; but I feel
that I can then face the remaining forty-six weeks of gross selfishness
with a clean conscience and a brazen face."

"Who's going?"

"Oh, the usual crowd,--my daughters, of course, a friend of theirs, a
young Jewess, and perhaps the Fearwell children. The men of the party
and my sister Bella will be lodged at Sir Joseph's place, Brineweald
Park."

"It sounds engaging enough," said St. Maur.

"Oh, most!" sighed Mrs. Delarayne. "Oh, you can't think what a happy
mother I'd be if only I had no children!"

Both men laughed, and Mrs. Delarayne who, ever since her arrival, had
been casting unmistakable glances at St. Maur, at last succeeded in
silently conveying her meaning to him.

"Well, I'm afraid I must be going downstairs," he said, "I've letters to
write."

She extended a hand with alacrity. "Oh, it looks as if I were driving
you away," she said.

St. Maur protested feebly against this truthful interpretation of his
proposed retreat, and withdrew.

Lord Henry took a seat opposite to his visitor, who was obviously as shy
as a schoolgirl in his presence, and surveyed her covertly.

"Have you come to tell me that you have abandoned that absurd Inner
Light?" he demanded playfully.

"No, indeed; why should I?" she rejoined with affected indignation.

"It is unpardonable," he murmured.

"Why unpardonable?"

"Had you been a Protestant in the past, it would at least have been
comprehensible," he said, "because any kind of absurdity is possible
after one has been a Protestant. What after all are all these
ridiculous, new-fangled creeds but further schisms of Protestantism? But
seeing that you were once a Catholic, I repeat, it is unpardonable."

Mrs. Delarayne purred resentfully, as if to imply that it would require
something more than that line of persuasion to convince her of her
error.

"What do you do to induce me to abandon anything--however erroneous?"
she protested at last. "It isn't as if you were even remaining in the
country. You are going away. But I cannot bear to think of your going
away."

Lord Henry folded his hands and scrutinised her for a moment beneath
lowered brows. Her manner was unmistakable; she revealed as much of her
game as her dignity allowed. His heart softened towards her.

"Is it so much to you that I am going?" he demanded.

"Oh, no," she replied, mock cheerfully, "_le roi est mort, vive le
roi!_"

"Haven't you a number of friends?"

"Weighed in the scales, of course," she said, "they represent a
tremendous amount of friendship."

"Aren't your daughters an interest?"

"Too adorable, of course,--so adorable that I sometimes wish I'd never
been born."

The problem as it presented itself to Lord Henry was rightly: how could
this quinquagenarian be given a son whom she could worship? To Mrs.
Delarayne the problem was: how could she induce this young man to
overcome the obvious objection consisting in the disparity of their
ages? She could read her own nature no further than this.

"Have you never any feelings of loneliness?" she demanded. "Don't you
ever reflect upon the happiness you might secure yourself and somebody
else by being decently married?"

"I might be tempted to marry. It is perfectly possible," Lord Henry
replied. "Hitherto the only thing that has deterred me has been my
vanity. It would be so horrible to watch the love a woman might bear me
slowly turning to indifference,--for that is what marriage means,--that
I don't think I could have the courage to embark upon the undertaking."

"You are flippant," said the widow sadly. "You pipe and joke while Rome
is burning."

"One day, of course, I shall have to marry," he muttered, as if to
himself.

She would have liked to ask him to Brineweald. She wanted a deep breath
of him before he left. For some reason, however, for which she was not
too anxious to account, she did not express this wish.

"Why will you _have_ to?" she asked.

"I mean," he said, "simply what I am always repeating in my clinique,
that save in the case of those who are really called to celibacy,--the
Newmans, the Spencers, and the Nietzsches of this world,--physical and
spiritual health is difficult without a normal sexual life."

"Quite so," the widow agreed.

"Quite so," Lord Henry repeated, "a _normal_ sexual life." He emphasised
the word "normal," hoping thereby to convey gently how hopeless her
scheme was.

"And when will that be?"

"Oh, Heaven knows!"

She rose, went to the window, and there was a pause.

"Lord Henry," she began after a while, "would it seem odd to you? Would
you think me shameless? Am I hopelessly abandoned, to tell you now, how
very much more than mere friendship, mere gratitude I feel for you?"

He buried his face in his hands and held his breath. He knew this was
inevitable; but as he had already told St. Maur, he had a heart.

She did not look at him, but continued speaking fluently, warmly,
incisively.

"Ever since I met you, I have felt what all of us women long to feel,
the ridiculous inferiority of the bulk of modern men suddenly relieved
by an object which we are willing to serve and obey. Your cures, if you
have ever effected any in me, were just that,--not your regimens or your
analyses,--but your words, your glance, the touch of your hand, your
presence. Everybody knows you have a bewildering presence. I need not
add to the idle compliments you must receive on all hands. But surely I
have recognised the greatness beneath the outward glamour. And it has
cast a spell over me. I admit it. I am fettered to it, riveted to it. We
women suffer to-day because we have no such men as you to look up to.
Oh, to have met for once something great, something precious, in a world
where these things are so rare!"

He glanced up at her. He could not help observing her spruce footgear
smothered in the dust of the road, her straight proud back, her fine
profile outlined against the bright colours of the chintz, and her
blue-veined hands. And he felt an uncontrollable impulse to tell her how
deeply he admired her.

"You are no fool," she pursued; "you must have known that I loved you.
Therefore I'm only confirming what you already know. But, believe me,
Lord Henry, I am something more than one of your interesting cases."

He protested.

"Yes, I know; you always say women cannot understand men, because to
comprehend is to comprise, and the smaller cannot comprise the
greater----"

He smiled approvingly.

"You see how accurately I can quote you. That is possibly true. I do not
claim to be able to understand you. But surely you will grant me that a
woman may have a deep and very real knowledge of being in the presence
of something exceptionally great, without precisely understanding it?"

Lord Henry rose. He was blinking rapidly and tugging with more than
usual force at his mesh of hair.

"Am I impossible?" she asked hoarsely. "Is the disparity of our ages
such that, hitherto, the thought of our being more than friends has been
unthinkable to you?"

He went to her side by the window. Words were forming on his lips, but
they would make no sentence. She saw his lips moving and noticed his
distress.

"Is it not a sign of our deep sympathy that you are the only man in all
England in whose presence I forget my ghastly age, my half century and
more expended on futilities?"

He took her hand.

"Oh, Edith Delarayne, you wonderful creature!" he exclaimed; "that is
the tragedy. You put your finger on the tragedy. If only you could be
twenty again, what a wife you would make for me!"

She gave a little sob and fell into his arms. "Oh, my boy, my dear boy!"
she cried, and kissed his hand almost with the avidity of hunger, as it
clasped hers on his shoulder.

She released herself slowly and lightly dabbed her eyes.

"When are you going away?" he demanded gravely.

"The day after to-morrow," she replied.

"Write to me as usual," he said.

She caught his hand and grasped it firmly. "Oh, Lord Henry, be the same
to me!" she pleaded.

He laughed the plea to scorn. "Of course I'll always be the same to you.
What do you think?"

She saw that he meant it and moved lightly towards the door. "I must be
going," she said, putting away her handkerchief, and trying to control
an awkward catch in her breath which was reminiscent of her weeping.

He urged her to stay for lunch; he offered to have her fetched by the
Sanatorium car; he begged to be allowed to accompany her back to
Ashbury; but she stalwartly refused; and in a moment he and St. Maur
were watching her, sprightly as a girl, tripping back along the dusty
road to the station.

"My boy, my dear boy," he muttered to St. Maur, "that is what she felt,
that is what she said. The unconscious voice in her knew the desired
relationship and expressed the wish, although the conscious mind thought
only of 'husband.'"




CHAPTER IX


"So inexhaustibly rich is the sun that even when it goes down it pours
its gold into the very depths of the sea; and then even the poorest
boatman rows with golden oars."

Thus spoke the greatest poet of the nineteenth century, and thus all
generations of men have felt.

The warm rich colour, as of ripeness, that it gives to the youngest
cheek, the tawny tinge as of jungle fauna with which it vitalises every
dead-white urban hand, and the enchanting glamour it lends to the
plainest head and face,--these are a few of the works of the sun that
are surely a proof of its demoniacal glory. Halos, it is true, it
fashions as well, and beyond reckoning; but the white teeth that flash
from the tanned mask are scarcely those of a saint. Or has a saint
actually been known who really had white teeth of his own?

August in England, between the moist wood-clad hills and the blinding
glitter of the sea; August in a beautiful country homestead, with its
flowering garden, its cool carpet of lawn stretching to a black line of
thick hedgerow which seems to be the last barrier between earth and
ocean,--what a season it is, and what a setting for the greatest game
of youth, the game of catch as catch can, with a cheerless winter for
the losers!

The world is at her old best, and all her children are exalted and
exhilarated by the knowledge that they are at their best also. Even the
trippers are perpetually in Sabbath clothes, as a sign that they are
infected with the prevalent feeling of festivity.

Sabbath clothes without the Sabbath gloom, beauty without piety, freedom
with open shops, sunshine without duty,--these to the masses are some of
the chief joys of the summer sun in England.

In this enumeration of a few of the leading features of a sunny August
in England, however, we should not forget to mention what will appear to
some the least desirable of them all. The fact that this particular
feature is omitted by the most successful English poets of the Victorian
School, as by other sentimentalists, would not excuse us in failing to
give it at least a passing reference here; for Victorian, alas! does not
by any means signify Alexandrian in regard to the periods of English
poetry; and even if it be a sin to mention this aspect of a sunny
August, we prefer to sin rather than to resemble a Victorian poet.

The quality referred to, then, is a certain result of the eternally
pagan influence of the sun. For, say what you will, the sun is pagan. It
says "Yea" to life. In its glorious rays it is ridiculously easy to
forget the alleged beauties of another world. Under its scorching heat
the snaky sinuousness of a basking cat seems more seductive than the
image of a winged angel, and amid the gold it lavishes, nothing looks
more loathsome, more repulsive, than the pale cheek of pious ill-health.
In short it urges man and woman to a wanton enjoyment of life and their
fellows; it recalls to them their relationship to the beasts of the
field and the birds in the trees; it fills them with a careless thirst
and hunger for the chief pastimes of these animals,--feeding, drinking,
and procreation; and the more "exalted" practices of self-abnegation,
self-sacrifice, and the mortification of the flesh, are easily forgotten
in such a mood.

Nothing goes wrong, nothing can go wrong, while the sun blazes and the
flowers are beautiful. So thinks everybody who has survived Puritanism
unscathed, so thought the majority of Brineweald's visitors that year,
so thought Mrs. Delarayne and her party of eager young swains and still
more eager virgins. Wantonness was in the air,--wantonness and beauty;
and when these two imps of passion come together August is at its
zenith.

Mrs. Delarayne had been down at Brineweald a little under a week;
Vanessa Vollenberg and the young Fearwells had already been of the party
four whole days; Sir Joseph with Denis Malster and Guy Tyrrell, Mr. and
Mrs. Gerald Tribe and Miss Mallowcoid had arrived at Brineweald Park
twenty-four hours after the Delarayne household had been completed, and
now everybody was busy settling down to the novelty of life, effacing
the traces of strangeness wherever they appeared, and measuring each
other's skill and power at pastimes not necessarily confined to
swimming, golf, and tennis.

Leonetta had been congratulated on her friend Vanessa. Mrs. Delarayne
who had expected an over-dressed, heavy young lady, with Shylock
countenance and shaggy negroid coiffure, had been not a little surprised
when she saw alight on the Brineweald down platform a girl who, though
distinctly Semitic in features, had all the refinement, good taste, and
sobriety of a Gentile and a lady. It was a relief, to say the least, and
when, in addition, she found her intelligent and a lively companion, she
was devoutly thankful.

Nothing beneath that fierce August sun escaped the keen comprehending
eye of Vanessa Vollenberg. The mother and the two daughters with whom
she found her present lot cast, gave her food enough for meditation and
secret comment; but while their acumen and penetration were hardly
inferior to her own, she felt an adult among people not completely grown
up. It was as if they still retained more of the ingenuousness of
primitive womanhood than she, and thus she "circumnavigated" them, while
they, all too self-centred, had barely discovered in which hemisphere
her shores were to be found. In this way the seniority of her race was
probably revealed.

Beautiful in her own Oriental style, voluptuous and graceful, with small
well-made hands, and shapely limbs, she might have proved a formidable
rival to Leonetta; or was it perhaps precisely her Jewish blood,--which
seemed in Leonetta's eyes to preclude rivalry,--that had first endeared
this attractive young Jewess to her wilful Gentile friend?

Girls have strange reasons for "falling in love" with each other at
school. It is not impossible that the inconceivability of eventual
rivalry should be one of these.

Mrs. Delarayne's house, "The Fastness," was one of a round dozen large
houses that stood along the crest of Brineweald Hill, overlooking the
little seaside town of Stonechurch. It took a little over fifteen
minutes to walk down from Brineweald to the beach at Stonechurch, and
perhaps a little over twenty minutes to walk back up the steep hill. Sir
Joseph's place, Brineweald Park, lay inland on the far side of the
village of Brineweald, about a mile from "The Fastness," but the
distance was soon covered by the young people, even when they could not
dispose of one of Sir Joseph's cars; and the two households were
therefore practically always mingled.

Bathing, tennis, golf, picnicking, croquet,--these helped to fill the
time while the sun was high; and when the cool of the evening came, the
quiet paths and groves of Brineweald Park, or the bowers of Mrs.
Delarayne's garden, were an agreeable refuge for bodies pleasantly
fatigued and faintly langorous.

Mrs. Delarayne who was not uncommonly in a condition of faint languor
was content, during these terrible six weeks of her life, to play the
part of spectator. Silently, but with a good proportion of the available
interest, she contemplated the younger members of the party, and whether
she happened to be on her _chaise-longue_ overlooking her own lawn, or
on the terrace of Brineweald Park, her deep concern about the
performances of her juniors never abated. The fact that a good deal of
this determined attention was calculated to ward off the less attractive
alternative of Sir Joseph's untiring advances, was suspected least of
all by the generous squire of Brineweald himself; but it was noticeable
too, that she would often sit for long spells neither observing the
pranks of her young people nor listening to Sir Joseph's dulcet tones,
and then it was that her daughters would suspect that age was after all
beginning to tell, even in the case of their valiant parent. At such
times she was, of course, simply dreaming day dreams of the life she
could have had if, as "he" had said, she had been twenty now; and the
beatific expression that would come into her face was scarcely one of
reconciliation to senility.

To say that Vanessa Vollenberg and Agatha Fearwell were perfectly happy
on this holiday, would be a little wide of the mark. Indeed their
condition fell very much more short of perfect happiness than they
could possibly have anticipated.

Truth to tell, Leonetta was too indisputably mistress of the stage. The
infinite resource with which she contrived always to draw the limelight in
her direction, the unremitting regularity with which she turned every
circumstance into a "curtain" for her own apotheosis, while it fired the
proud Cleopatra to ever fresh efforts at successful competition,--efforts
which were proving tremendously exhausting,--left Vanessa and Agatha in a
state not unlike a suspension of hostilities. They simply waited. Of all
the men, Denis Malster was certainly the only one that a girl could have
been expected to make a struggle for, and since he appeared to be entirely
hypnotised by Leonetta, the remaining two, one of whom, in Agatha's case,
was a brother, seemed to invite only a Platonic relationship of games and
sports.

It is true that Guy Tyrrell felt he could have gone to any lengths with
the fascinating, voluptuous Jewess; but he had the inevitable defects of
his "clean-mindedness," and knew as little how to engage the interest of
a thoroughly matriculated girl as to rouse enthusiasm for botany in a
cat.

The first walk they had taken with the three young men and Cleopatra and
her sister had been typical of much that followed.

In the middle of a conversation in which Vanessa's native Jewish wit was
beginning to tell against the more homely gifts of the rest of the
party, Leonetta would suddenly fall back, stand in an attitude of rapt
attention over a brook, a well, a wild flower, a plank bridge, a pool,
or anything; and, at a signal from her, the three men of the party would
quickly rally to her halting place, and enter heartily into whatever
spirit the object contemplated was supposed to stimulate.

It was usually the merest trifle that caused her thus to arrest for a
moment the forward movement of her companions, and to interrupt a
conversation to boot; but Vanessa alone had the penetration to see the
unfailing instinct for power, the unflagging determination to be the
centre of attention, which prompted this simple strategy, on Leonetta's
part; and rather than compete with it,--seeing that it was practised
with all the usual efficiency of unconsciousness,--she saved herself the
vexation of possible defeat by yielding quietly to Leonetta the
supremacy she apparently insisted upon having. Thus, while she kept a
steady eye upon Denis Malster, whose manner had captivated her from the
start, she was content, or rather discontent, to note step by step Guy
Tyrrell's blundering innocence in attempted courtship.

Agatha, accustomed as she was to the rôle of padding in life, fell back
on her devoted brother, and used such influence as she possessed over
him, to keep his mind well aired and cool amid the slightly overheating
breezes of that memorable midsummer.

Cleopatra, on the other hand, not so wise perhaps as Vanessa, certainly
not so ready to retire as Agatha, and possibly less able to feel if not
to simulate indifference, than either of them, plunged into the conflict
with a vigour and a degree of animation which made her almost as
unbearable to the other girls as Leonetta herself. Again, however,
Vanessa was shrewd enough to realise the emergency Cleopatra was in, and
forgave her much that left Agatha painfully wondering. For Cleopatra the
fight was a serious one. It called for all her resources and all her
skill. Unfortunately she lacked Leonetta's fertility in finding means by
which to draw the general attention upon herself, and being overanxious
as well, her tactics frequently failed. She would descend to every shift
to thwart her sister's wiles,--only to find, however, that it was more
often Stephen Fearwell or the Incandescent Gerald, than Guy and Denis,
who allowed themselves to be diverted from their orbit round Leonetta,
to attend to her.

At tennis it would be a blister suddenly formed on Leonetta's hand; at
croquet it would be a fledgling just beside her ball; on the beach it
would be a peculiar pebble,--anywhere, everywhere, there was always
something over which Leonetta would suddenly stand dramatically still,
until every male within sight, including sometimes Sir Joseph himself,
had run all agog to her side.

Now the imitation of such tactics is difficult enough; their defeat,
when they are combated consciously, is literally exhausting. In two or
three days Cleopatra was exhausted.

Never at a loss for a pretext, never apparently thinking any excuse too
jejune, too transparently fatuous, or too puerile, to draw the attention
of the men, Leonetta, with unabated high spirits, won again and again,
every day, every hour, such a number of these silent secret victories
over the rest of the young women of the party, that at the end of a
week, when their cumulative effect was so overwhelmingly manifest as no
longer to allow of denial, she openly assumed the rôle of queen of the
party.

Again and again, in a game of tennis, Cleopatra's tired and overworked
brain would grapple with the problem, why a certain empty remark of
Leonetta's had caused Denis and Guy to double up with laughter, and had
thus held up the game for a moment; and the solution was hard to find.
She knew that even a brighter remark from herself would not have so much
as caused them to interrupt their service; but she was imperfectly
acquainted with the psychology of rulership, and did not understand that
when once, by fair means or foul, a certain member of a party has by her
own unaided efforts elevated herself to the position of its queen,
everything ostensibly witty that proceeds from her mouth is greeted with
obsequious laughter by her devoted subjects.

Indeed, in order not to appear a spoilsport, Cleopatra was at last
reduced to the humiliating resort of joining in the courtly merriment
which appeared to her so extravagantly to result from her sister's
mildest jests.

To say that by this time she was feeling a slight sinking sensation in
the region of her heart, would be to express with scrupulous moderation
what was actually taking place. For Cleopatra, theretofore, had held her
own against the best. A good rider, a splendid shot, with almost a
professional form in tennis and golf, and a good swimmer and dancer
besides, she possessed none of those shortcomings, so handsomely
acknowledged when they are present, which would even have justified her
in taking up an unassuming position. Besides she was quite rightly aware
of owning certain sterling qualities which promised to afford a very
much more solid support to the everyday life of this world, than the
constant carnival brilliance of her sister; and she found it oppressive
to have to appear perpetually in carnival spirits, when she craved for
those more sober moods in which her less volatile virtues could make a
good display.

She was beginning to find her sister's hard, unrelenting rivalry
difficult to forgive, and the steady shaping of a dreaded feeling of
loathing for the cause of her partial eclipse began to cause her some
alarm.

Thus each day ended with a tacit, concealed, but very real victory for
Leonetta, without her sister deriving any further satisfaction from the
unavowed contest, than an aching weariness both of body and spirit.

Meanwhile Vanessa, more piqued by her whilom "sweetheart's" increasing
neglect of her than by that young lady's inordinate success with the
men, would come on the scene in the evening with all the advantage of
being less jaded than Cleopatra by the day's incessant duel, and then
would frequently score point after point against her schoolmate, without
ever revealing a sign of the eagerness she felt for the fray. In
addition she made herself a great favourite of the wealthy baronet, and
recognising in him a means of possibly exercising some power over Denis,
cultivated his affection by every wile of which her clever race made her
capable.

Denis Malster was obviously the most staggered by the turn events had
taken. Bewildered and fascinated by Leonetta's art of blowing hot and
cold, as the spirit moved her, kept constantly alert by the rapid
changes of her caprice, he had come to have eyes and ears only for her
imperious youth. If she ran off with Guy Tyrrell or with Stephen
Fearwell,--a mere boy,--he grew grave, meditative, taciturn; when she
returned he resumed his rôle of obsequious courtier without either
reserve or concealment. And who can be more obsequious to a pretty
schoolgirl than an Englishman of thirty?

The British are known all over the world for their stamina, for the grit
and tenacity with which they can play a losing game; nay, it is even
reported that they have frequently turned a losing game into a victory
by this very capacity for stubborn patience in adversity.

Cleopatra lacked none of the qualities which have made the British
nation famous. She, too, could play a losing game with dignity, grace,
and pride; even if, as in this case, it was the cruellest game that a
girl can be called upon to play. Perhaps, too, she noticed the conflict
that had started in Denis Malster's heart; or maybe she simply saw the
unmistakable signs of his dawning passion. But, in any case, and as
quickly as surely as she realised that he was becoming enslaved to her
sister, his charms underwent a mysterious intensification in her eyes
that only aggravated the difficulties of her position.

Certainly he had not made the first advances. Or, if he had, they had
been too subtle to be observed. What woman, moreover, really believes
that a man is ever guilty in the traffic of the sexes? She had, however,
been compelled to notice her sister's manoeuvres. They had been
unmistakable, untiring, unpardonable.

At times she had even been constrained to admire the skill with which
Guy Tyrrell, Stephen Fearwell, and the Incandescent Gerald himself had
been employed by Leonetta in the business of tormenting Denis into a
state of complete subjection. Every means was legitimate to Leonetta. If
she could not pretend to read a man's hand, she would make a cat's
cradle with him; if she could not take his arm, she would plead sudden
fatigue in order that he might take her hand to pull her up hill; if she
picked a wild rose, a thorn would be sure to remain buried in the skin
of her finger, which at some propitious moment would require to be
laboriously removed by one of the male members of the party.

A girl may struggle with fortitude against such a determined dispute for
supremacy; she may deploy her whole strength and even contrive parallel
manoeuvres of her own; but even when she is not less beautiful than
her rival, as was the case with Cleopatra, the more conscious of the two
engaged in such a match is bound in the end to be less happy in her
discoveries, less spontaneous in her inventions, and therefore less
successful in her results. For natural spontaneity is quickly felt and
appreciated by a group of fellow-beings, as is also the element of
vexation and overanxiousness, which Cleopatra was beginning to reveal
despite all her efforts at concealment.

The most unnerving, the most jading, however, of all her self-imposed
performances at this moment, was the constraint to laugh and be merry,
when others laughed and were merry over the frequently empty horse-play
of her sister.

It was this particularly that was beginning to tell against her in the
duel. And as fast as she felt herself losing ground, as surely as she
felt her hold on Denis slackening, the old gnawing sensation at her
heart, which had first been felt years before when Leonetta had ceased
to be a child, would assert itself with hitherto unwonted painfulness,
unprecedented insistence, until it began like a disease to come between
her and her meals, and, worse than all, to engage her attention when she
ought to have been sleeping.

Thus during these wonderful summer days, while all nature was proud with
her magnificent display, while the sun poured down its splendour without
stint upon the homely Kentish coast, Cleopatra, nodding and bowing in
the breeze, like any other flower, fragrant and unhandseled like the
other blooms about her, and voluptuous and seductive like a full-blown
rose, was yet aware of a parasitic germ in her heart that was eating her
life-blood away. To her, alone, in all that party, the warm arms of the
sun brandished javelins, and the calm riches of the landscape concealed
jibes. The meanest field labourer seemed happier than she, the commonest
insect more wanton and more free.

You would have passed her by without noticing that she was in any way
different from her sister, except perhaps that she was obviously more
mature. In her spirited glance and smile you would have detected nothing
of the tempest in her soul, nothing of the fear in her heart. Only a
botanist of the human spirit could have observed that subtle difference
in her look, that suggestion of anxiety in her parted lips, which told
the tale of her incomparably courageous, determined, undaunted, but
sadly unavailing fight.

It was the night, the long silence alone, that she was beginning to
dread. And those who dread the night show the lines of fear on their
faces during the day. They laugh, they join in the general sport, their
gait is light, their clothes may be gay, but at the back of their eyes,
the sympathetic can see the previous night's vigil; and it is the
haunting fear of experiencing it again that gives their voices, their
words, their very laughter that ring of overanxiousness, that stamp of
heavily overtaxed bravery.

Cleopatra dreaded the night; but she also dreaded the dawn. Denis,
sunburnt, athletic, efficient at everything he undertook, Denis
ironical, pensive, independent, Denis revealed anew to her in a way she
had least expected, was obviously either humouring a flapper most
shamelessly--or--or----

The alternative could not be articulated. To have pronounced it would
have lent it a reality that it must not possess. It was, however, in the
effort not to frame the alternative that her vigils were kept. And it is
extraordinary how one can perspire even on the coolest night over such
an effort.




CHAPTER X


"Peachy, what do you think has happened? Oh, _do_ guess!"

The voice was Leonetta's. The question was followed by a laugh, a laugh
that spoke at once of triumph and merriment.

It was lunch-time on the morning of the ninth day of their holiday. Mrs.
Delarayne, in the garden of "The Fastness," was stretched on her
_chaise-longue_ reading. Beside her Cleopatra, who had not felt inclined
for a bathe that morning, and who, therefore, had not been into
Stonechurch, was working at some fancy embroidery.

"I haven't any idea," Mrs. Delarayne replied, as Leonetta stalked up the
garden path with Denis at her side, followed by Vanessa, Guy Tyrrell,
and the Fearwells. They all had their wet bathing things with them, and
even the matronly Vanessa had her hair hanging over her shoulders.

"Why, the man in the sweetstuff shop at the corner of the High Street
took Denis and me for husband and wife!" Leonetta exclaimed, bursting
with laughter once more.

Cleopatra's hand shook a little, but she did not look up.

"He probably noticed us waiting outside and thought you were the
schoolmistress of the party,--that's all," interjected Vanessa.

Everybody laughed except Leonetta.

"That's absurd," she protested, "because he could scarcely have thought
I could be----"

But her voice was drowned by more laughter, led chiefly by Vanessa.

"Oh, well, it's not worth arguing about, any way," said the Jewess,
twirling her bathing dress round very rapidly.

"Don't do that!" cried Leonetta sharply. "Can't you see that you're
simply drenching poor Peachy?"

Mrs. Delarayne smiled imperceptibly at this remark, and all the bathers
ran off to prepare for lunch.

"I think," said the widow to her elder daughter, "that it would have
been only considerate if Denis had offered to stay behind to keep you
company this morning."

Cleopatra, bundling up her work with lightning speed, rose. Her ears
were hot and red, and she could not let her mother see her face.

"Do you,--oh, well, I don't," she said a little tetchily, and made
rapidly towards the house.

Mrs. Delarayne stared sadly after her. Had she said anything
offensive?--Children were difficult, very difficult, she thought; and
she longed for the freedom and the society of her London home.

"I think I made Denis rather savage this morning," Leonetta was
explaining to Vanessa, meanwhile, as the two were arranging their hair
in the bedroom they shared.

Vanessa, stopping her operations for a moment, turned and regarded her
friend with some interest.

"When and where?" she demanded.

"Well, you know that awfully good-looking boy who was sitting on the
bench when we bathed yesterday----"

Vanessa nodded in her business-like way.

"Well, didn't you notice that he bathed at the same time as we did
to-day?"

"Oh, I thought I saw him," replied Vanessa.

"And he kept standing in the water," Leonetta continued, "with his arms
folded, staring at me. He looked most awfully wicked,--it was lovely!"
she cried laughing.

"But where does Denis come in?" enquired the Jewess, who was not too
prone to jump to hasty conclusions concerning other people's triumphs.

"Well, don't you see,--Denis saw him, and saw that I sometimes stared
back at him."

"Oh, is that all?" Vanessa exclaimed, with a somewhat exaggerated note
of disappointment in her voice. "But did he say anything then?"

"Yes, after the bathe," Leonetta rejoined, dropping her voice to a
whisper, "he asked me whether I knew that strange young man."

"Well?" Vanessa demanded, still retaining the note of disappointed
expectancy in her voice.

"That's all," Leonetta replied, conscious that Vanessa had ruined the
effect of her little narrative.

For some moments Vanessa silently continued her toilet; then when she
was quite ready to go downstairs, she sat down and waited for her
friend.

"Are you fond of Denis?" she enquired at last.

"He's not bad," replied Leonetta carelessly. "What do you think he
thinks of me?"

Vanessa's keen Jewish features became inscrutable in a moment, and her
eyes turned as it were indifferently to the window. A week ago she might
have replied that Denis was obviously "smitten"; but four days of almost
total neglect and really formidable rivalry are hard to forgive, even
when one flatters oneself that one is "above" such treatment.

"He certainly seems to be amused by you," she said cryptically.

Leonetta did not like this way of putting it, and the conversation
therefore ceased to interest her. "Are you coming?" she said, and made
towards the door.

In another room Cleopatra had been listening to Agatha Fearwell's
account of what had occurred at Stonechurch that morning, and the facts
she culled from the girl's guileless and unsuspecting statement had not
reassured her.

"Cleo, what on earth's the matter?" Agatha cried suddenly.

"Why--what?" Cleopatra rejoined, bracing herself, but turning a drawn
and haggard face, that had just grown unusually pale, to her friend.

"My dear, aren't you well?"

"Quite," replied Cleopatra, parting her lips in a faint, hardly
convincing smile.

"But you can't be,--sit down, do!" said Agatha.

Cleopatra made a stupendous effort to recover herself, which was
singularly reminiscent of her undefeated mother. "The heat, I suppose,"
she observed.

But Agatha was not satisfied. She was too intelligent to be silenced by
such an obvious feminine defence. She could not help drawing her own
conclusions, although Cleopatra's proud reserve forbade her asking any
further questions.

Denis stayed to lunch at "The Fastness" that day, and in the afternoon
there was tennis. The beautiful weather still continuing, Mrs. Delarayne
was loath to join Sir Joseph on his interminable excursions by car. He
had her sister with him, and the Tribes, and she had also sent Vanessa,
of whom he had grown very fond, to represent her. "If people will keep a
lot of fat chauffeurs who must be occupied," she said, "I don't see why
I should be compelled to bore myself for hours at a time on that
account." However, they were all returning to "The Fastness" to tea that
afternoon.

So she reclined on her _chaise-longue_ in one of the shady corners of
her garden behind the lawn, reading the latest of Richard Latimer's
novels, and there very soon Cleopatra joined her. Between them stood an
occasional table, and upon it were tumblers, a few bottles of ale, and a
glass jug containing still lemonade.

A moment before Agatha had had five minutes' private conversation with
Mrs. Delarayne, and the latter was looking a trifle serious when her
daughter joined her.

"Cleo, my dear," she began, "you look tired,--been overdoing it?"

"I have a headache," Cleopatra retorted impatiently.

No more than Agatha was Mrs. Delarayne likely to be satisfied with this
reply. She saw now that Agatha had been right, and blamed herself for
her blindness hitherto.

"I don't like you to be so interested in that silly needlework," she
added. "You are not yourself, or you would not work so ridiculously
fast."

Cleopatra said nothing.

"Cleo, do you hear me?" she cried. "I'm speaking to you. Look up?--Why
are you so silent?"

"Oh, Edith, for Heaven's sake!" exclaimed the distracted girl. "I don't
think I could have slept well last night--that's all."

"Why aren't you Denis's partner at tennis?"

"For the simple reason," Cleopatra replied, with a self-revelatory glare
in her eyes, "that Baby is!"

Mrs. Delarayne turned to her novel for a moment. "Who's Agatha playing
with?" she enquired at last.

"With Guy of course."

"And where's Stephen?"

"Oh, he's somewhere. I believe he's cleaning his motor-cycle."

At this point Guy's voice was heard from the lawn:

"We're thirty and Leonetta and Denis are love!"

Cleopatra made a violent movement with her foot, and accidently kicked
the table so that all the tumblers rang in unison.

"Oh, Cleo, my dear!--do be careful!" the widow exclaimed. "What have you
done?"

"It's nothing, Edith--nothing."

"Forty--love," cried Guy Tyrrell.

"The terminology of tennis is at times a little tiresome," thought Mrs.
Delarayne.

"You must play in the next game," she said, regarding her daughter a
little anxiously.

"Oh, I'm sick of tennis," Cleopatra sighed. "I hate all games."

"You used to like it so!" her mother expostulated.

Then suddenly there came the sound of shrieks from the direction of the
lawn, and Guy's voice was heard again: "I say, Denis, old man," it said,
"do attend to the game, please; you can flirt with Leonetta later on."

Cleopatra put down her embroidery with a jerk and pressed a hand
spasmodically to her brow. "Don't you think it's dreadfully hot here?"
she exclaimed.

Mrs. Delarayne frowned. "My dear, you couldn't have a cooler place in
all Brineweald. Take some lemonade." Then after a pause during which she
made another brief examination of her daughter's looks, she added: "I
certainly think you ought to go and lie down; but I do wish they
wouldn't shout so."

Then she took up her novel again.

A few minutes passed thus, Mrs. Delarayne pretending to read, and
wondering all the while whether Agatha had not perhaps overstated
Cleopatra's trouble; and Cleopatra working frantically like one who is
determined not to think at all.

All of a sudden Leonetta came racing down the path from the lawn, and
dashed past her mother and sister, with Denis close at her heels.

Mrs. Delarayne looked up, and her expression was one of annoyance. She
saw Denis catch her younger daughter just as she reached the shrubbery
concealing the kitchen end of the house from the garden.

"Leo, will you give that up!" panted Denis.

They were only a few yards away, and Mrs. Delarayne followed the whole
proceeding with a frown. "Well, tell me first what it is!" rejoined the
flapper, holding her hands behind her back, and smiling defiantly at
him.

"I thought you two were playing tennis," Mrs. Delarayne cried aloud,
with just a suggestion of indignation, and craning her neck so as to be
seen by them.

"Oh, we've done with that long ago," Leonetta replied, obviously a
little excited.

"It's my note-book," said Denis, "it must have fallen out of my pocket."
He caught the girl by the arm, and she laughed. Then quickly shaking him
off, she dashed up the garden with Denis close behind her.

"The game of chasing and being chased," said a familiar voice, and
Cleopatra looked up. It was Vanessa, followed by all the motoring party.

"Yes, the oldest game of mankind," added Sir Joseph.

"And one of which I suppose the human female never grows tired," Mrs.
Delarayne observed rising.

"Any excuse will do," Vanessa continued, resting a hand gently on
Cleopatra's shoulder. "Won't it, Cleo dear?"

Cleopatra darted up, saw that her mother was too much engaged greeting
the party from the Park to notice her disappearance, and made rapidly
towards the house.

"Isn't Cleo well?" Miss Mallowcoid demanded, her eyebrows high up in her
fringe with indignant surprise.

"It surely isn't as bad as all that!" ejaculated the unfortunate widow.
"Do you notice it too?"

"It certainly is very noticeable, I should have thought," Vanessa
remarked.

Mrs. Delarayne then begged the young Jewess to find out what Cleopatra
was doing, and to persuade her if possible to lie down. She thereupon
conducted her guests to a small marquee where tea was laid, and called
to the tennis-players to join them.

In a moment Vanessa returned.

"She doesn't want me," she exclaimed. "She says she wants to be alone."

"But isn't she going to have any tea?" cried Mrs. Delarayne shrilly.

"Later on, she said," the Jewess replied.

"How full of caprice these young things are!" interjected Miss
Mallowcoid. "Why, she did not even wish us good-day!"

"The truth is," said Mrs. Delarayne, "Cleo hates being ill, and probably
wished to avoid being asked questions."

"Oh, how natural that is!" Mrs. Tribe observed, glancing half fearfully
at Miss Mallowcoid.

"You've made this place look very pretty," said Sir Joseph, smiling
unctuously at his hostess; "charming, charming! A perfect setting for
a--for a precious----"

"Here, you want some refreshment," snapped Miss Mallowcoid gruffly.
"Edith, where's Sir Joseph's cup?"

Sir Joseph laughed a little boisterously, and the tennis players
arrived.

"Where's Cleo?" was Leonetta's first question. She looked hot and
excited, but extremely happy.

Miss Mallowcoid explained that Cleo was in one of her "precious" moods,
as she put it. She had never been a great favourite with her nieces, and
since the fuel of affection is so largely a distillation of vanity, she
did not feel much love towards them. Her remark, however, succeeded in
making Mrs. Delarayne fill Sir Joseph's saucer with tea.

"That's not kind," said the widow, glaring first at her sister and then
at Denis. "Cleo, I'm afraid, is not very well."

"The heat perhaps," lisped the Incandescent Gerald.

"And other things," added Agatha, in her quiet, eloquent way.

Her brother Stephen stared perplexedly at her for some seconds, and then
looked round the party with an air of utter bewilderment.

"Ah, these young people will do too much!" Sir Joseph remarked solemnly.
Then turning to his hostess he added: "It was the same at the time of
the bicycle craze in the early nineties,--but you would scarcely
remember that, my dear lady!"

"What!" ejaculated Miss Mallowcoid. "Edith not remember the bicycle
craze of the nineties! My dear Sir Joseph, what absurd rubbish!"

Miss Mallowcoid was beginning to make her sister feel what the doctors
call "febrile."

"You so frequently jump at wrong conclusions in your efforts to set the
world right, my dear Bella," she said with bitter precision. "Surely
one's life may be so full of other preoccupations that one can forget
even the most startling events."

"Oh, I see what you mean," said Miss Mallowcoid, speaking with her mouth
full of very dry short-bread, "I didn't know he meant it in that way."

Sir Joseph was about to exclaim that he did not, as a matter of fact,
mean it "in that way"; but realising the hyperbolic quality of his
intended compliment, he preferred to appear eager to swallow the end of
a chocolate _éclair_ rather than attempt to explain.

At this point Denis was observed to try and snatch back a piece of cake
that Leonetta had, in keeping with her customary tactics, previously
taken from his plate. In doing so, however, he struck the top of the
milk jug with his elbow, and the vessel toppled over and emptied itself
upon his own and Leonetta's clothes.

Mrs. Delarayne flushed a little in anger. At any other time she would
have laughed with the rest over such an incident, but in the
circumstances it was too intimately connected with the cause of her
anxiety to be passed over in silence.

"Leo, you really are a pest," she exclaimed. "You simply cannot leave
Denis alone one minute. Really, Denis, if you'll excuse my being
outspoken, I'm surprised at your encouraging the child!"

"What it is to be young and good-looking!" sighed Vanessa, casting a
sidelong glance at the young gentleman in question.

"All right, Peachy!" Leonetta snapped, vexed and almost outraged by her
mother's bald statement of the plain truth, "it's only an accident; you
needn't be so cross."

Mrs. Delarayne was on the point of administering a stinging lesson to
her flapper daughter,--a lesson which that young person would certainly
have remembered to the end of her days,--when, suddenly, Wilmott
appeared on the lawn in front of the marquee.

"Yes, Wilmott, what is it?" Mrs. Delarayne enquired irritably.

"If you please, mum, will you come and see Miss Cleopatra; she's fallen
down in the billiard-room."

"Fallen down in the billiard-room?" everybody repeated.

The whole party were on their legs in an instant.

"Now, what are you all going to do?" cried Mrs. Delarayne, never more
herself than when a heavy demand was laid upon her self-possession.
"Please remain where you are, and get on with your tea. I'll go and see
what's happened. Agatha!"

Mrs. Delarayne and Agatha, followed by Wilmott, went back to the house,
and, as they went, the maid explained that it was a wonder Miss
Cleopatra had not killed herself, as her head "was quite close up
against the fender."

       *       *       *       *       *

That evening, on the terrace of Brineweald Park, where the whole party
had dined, Mrs. Delarayne and Sir Joseph sat solemnly talking.

"You will have to do something, Joseph," the widow was saying. "He's
certainly in your power. Convey to him by some means that he cannot play
fast and loose in this way. He accepted the rise of two hundred on the
understanding that he would marry."

"Well, my dear Edith, I can't exactly make him marry, can I?" Sir Joseph
protested.

"But he has not even proposed yet!" the lady cried.

Sir Joseph grunted.

"Instead, if you please, he is making a fool of himself with Leo, and
turning her into an insufferable little prig."

"Not really!"

"Really!"

Sir Joseph grunted again.

"It's making Cleopatra quite ill. Agatha says it is, and I'm sure she's
right. She fainted in the billiard-room this afternoon and her head was
within an inch of the fender. The poor girl almost killed herself.
Besides, I hate a child to have her head turned by a man of thirty. It's
such easy going for him, and she's too young to know the difference
between an actor and a coachman."

"I'll see what I can do," said the baronet, stirring himself a little.
"But you'll admit the position is delicate."

"It's so absurd, because Leonetta has not got the marks of the cradle
off her back yet."

"A child as fascinating as her dear mother," Sir Joseph interposed,
taking the widow's hand.

She brushed his fingers from her. "I've lost patience with him," she
cried. "What is it makes these young Englishmen always abandon
full-blown maturity for flapperdom? I suppose it is the tradition of
their manufacturing race to worship raw material."

"Oh, he's not in love with her," Sir Joseph objected.

In another part of the park Miss Mallowcoid, Agatha, and Cleopatra were
walking arm-in-arm. Miss Mallowcoid, always stirred to some act of
self-sacrificing devotion by the sight of genuine illness, was making it
her duty to give her niece a little healthy exercise before going to
bed. Cleopatra would have given a good deal to escape this determined
altruism on her aunt's part, but Miss Mallowcoid was not so easily
thwarted in the practice of her virtues.

Meanwhile, Denis, surrounded by the rest of the party, was indulging in
a form of amusement that he had popularised of late among the younger
members of the two households. It consisted in a sort of uneven
cock-fight between himself and Gerald Tribe, on the question of
religion, and it was punctuated by roars of laughter from Leonetta,
Vanessa, Guy Tyrrell, and even Stephen Fearwell; while the unfortunate
Mrs. Tribe, feeling that her husband was being made to look ridiculous
for the edification of the rest of the party, would repeatedly interrupt
the proceedings by urging her spouse to "come to bed." This, however,
he always resolutely refused to do, much to the satisfaction of
everybody present; and the unequal contest would be continued.

Sometimes the sensitive and sensible woman would interpolate a remark
which considerably discomfited her husband's aggressor; and then, hoping
to bring the controversy quickly to an end on this note of triumph,
would tug vigorously at his coat sleeve. But Incandescent Gerald, hot,
excited, beaten, and indignant, was not to be lured away to the marital
bed while he still smarted from his opponent's blows, and endeavouring
ever afresh to turn the tide of battle, would remain to blunder on into
another rout.

At one moment on the evening of the day of Cleopatra's first fall, when
the laughter against him rose too high, the moon revealed to Stephen
Fearwell that tears of indignation were welling in Mrs. Tribe's eyes;
and then thinking of Miss Mallowcoid, and of how this one holiday in the
year, away from the hard spinster's cold tyranny, was being spoilt for
her by these evening debates, he rose smartly to his feet, clapped the
Incandescent Gerald on the back, and tugged at his collar.

"Look here, sir," he cried, "you're beginning to interest me in this
Inner Light of yours. Come for a walk and tell me more about it. Perhaps
Mrs. Tribe will join us?"

"Oh, don't take them away!" cried Guy Tyrrell, while Leonetta and
Vanessa moaned.

"Sorry," said Stephen, "but I honestly want to hear all about it. Come
on, Tribe!"

Incandescent Gerald rose, half dazed. He believed in his Inner Light,
whatever Denis might have to say against it, and he could hardly resist
Stephen's gratifying suggestion. He smiled guilelessly into the young
man's face, and he, Stephen, and Mrs. Tribe vanished into the darkness.

"Stephen was a lout to go and do that!" Guy exclaimed.

"I think he noticed that Mrs. Tribe was beginning to cry," said Vanessa.

"Nonsense, Nessy, you must be dreaming!" retorted Denis.




CHAPTER XI


In the full-grown schoolgirl, who stands on the threshold of womanhood,
we have a creature who, though probably admirably equipped with normal
or even supernormal passions, is, possibly owing to the accident of her
age and her position, less prone to be led by passion than by vanity in
her first affairs with the other sex.

Standing on the threshold of life as she does, she may be a little too
eager to prove that she is fit for the game, fit for the thrills and
throbs of the great melodrama. Out of sheer anxiety therefore, without
any genuine desire to gratify a passion, but simply with the view of
giving her self-esteem the proof that she is mature, she may behave very
much as if her heart and passions were involved. And though, in later
life, she may develop into a supremely desirable woman, she behaves for
the nonce very much like those deplorable people who in all they think
and do are actuated by vanity alone.

The dupe in such cases, the fool in such cases, the creature who, owing
to his gross misunderstanding of the situation, allows himself to be
persuaded by his vanity that he has stimulated _une grande passion_ in
an unbroken filly, naturally deserves all he gets. Unfortunately, as the
world is at present constituted, his punishment, like that of the modern
co-respondent, always falls short of its proper severity.

Now Denis Malster was certainly no fool,--nay, he was probably above the
average in intelligence; and yet the speed with which he had succeeded
in monopolising Leonetta's attention made him feel in his gratified
vanity, so immensely grateful to the girl, that willy-nilly, he found
himself drifting all too pleasantly along that warm and intoxicating
stream that the nineteenth century called "Love," without feeling either
the obligation or even the desire to realise calmly and dispassionately
what had actually happened.

Quite recently she had even allowed him to kiss her. It was unspeakable
bliss, almost distressing in its transcendent quality. He "had such joy
of kissing her," he "had small care to sleep or feed. For the joy to
kiss between her brows time upon time" he "was well-nigh dead." How
could he be deceived by such unequivocal demonstrations of real passion?
In any case it was too wonderful to be wrong, and if wrong--what then?
The Devil was worth a score of heavens!

He had not carelessly overlooked the other sister. He was not
absent-minded where she was concerned. He had resolutely cast her out of
his mind. With conscious deliberation he had banished her far beyond his
horizon. His only remaining difficulty was not to discover the nature
of his next step, but how to take it. He felt an irrevocable destiny
bidding him solicit Leonetta's hand, but he rightly foresaw that there
might be some difficulty where Mrs. Delarayne was concerned.

It was because he happened to be in this mood of conscienceless desire,
unreflecting longing, that he had been able to listen calmly at the
table, the day before, while Wilmott announced Cleopatra's fall. Dimly
he had connected his behaviour with her indisposition; but the
temptation to continue along his present lines was too great to allow
him to dwell profitably upon that aspect of the situation.

Now again, just after he had come down from Brineweald Park to "The
Fastness," as was his wont after breakfast, he had scarcely felt a fibre
of pity or remorse stir in his body while Mrs. Delarayne had described
Cleopatra's second fainting fit to him. He had expressed his sympathy
formally, conventionally, like one who had but a few moments to spare
for such considerations, and even before Mrs. Delarayne had completed
her narrative, had allowed his eyes to wander eagerly all over the
garden for a sign of Leonetta.

Rigid and unmoved, he had seen the stir caused by the arrival of the
doctor, and later by the departure of Stephen Fearwell on his
motor-cycle with an urgent message from Mrs. Delarayne to Sir Joseph to
send one of his cars round at once for her immediate use.

What the car was wanted for, how it was connected with Cleopatra's
illness, he hadn't either the inclination or the interest to discover;
he only deplored the destiny that caused Cleopatra's breakdown when,
suddenly, without Mrs. Delarayne's having made any mention of the plan
to him, Leonetta, dazzling, electrifying, and elfish as usual, tripped
out into the garden to whisper to him that her mother wished her to
drive with her to Ashbury at once.

"To Ashbury--you--at once--with the Warrior?" he ejaculated. "Whatever
for?"

"I don't know," said Leonetta.

"But it's impossible," he objected. "Can't you say you can't go?"

"I wish I could."

"But why should the old Warrior want to take precisely you to Ashbury?"
he pursued.

"I only know," she replied, "that Lord Henry's Sanatorium is at Ashbury,
and that Peachy's making far too much of Cleo's illness. Why, it's only
the heat."

"How many miles is it to Ashbury?"

"Seventeen to twenty, I believe."

"So you'll be gone about two hours?"

"Yes, my darling,--cheer up."

He smiled at these words, pressed her hand tenderly as he did so, and
heard the car glide round the drive.

"Good-bye, my goddess," he whispered.

Then suddenly Mrs. Delarayne's head appeared at one of the bedroom
windows of the house.

"Come in and get ready at once, Leonetta!" she called out angrily. "The
car has just arrived."

"Good-bye, my angel," she whispered, and ran in.

It was eleven o'clock; they could be back for lunch. The Fearwells,
Vanessa, and Guy Tyrrell had gone to Stonechurch for a bathe. The whole
place was a desert. He thought he might go for a walk, and entered the
house to fetch his hat and stick. But he hesitated; he felt so desolate
alone. The sound, however, of another car in the drive outside, and Sir
Joseph's voice giving instructions to the chauffeur, brought him quickly
to his senses, and snatching his hat down, he ran out of the house,
through the garden, and out into the meadows beyond.

It was a glorious day. He had no wish to try to account for his
reluctance to meet his chief alone at that moment, and as he swung his
stick and whistled on his walk, he tried to convince himself that he
could afford to snap his fingers at the powerful City magnate.

       *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile Mrs. Delarayne and Leonetta were racing along as swiftly as
Sir Joseph's head chauffeur dared to go. The road and the hedges on
either side seemed to be simply a green-edged ribbon which the bonnet
of the car cut into two gigantic streamers that flew for miles and miles
behind them. Villages were skirted as far as possible, and appeared to
be packed hurriedly away like so much stage scenery. Narrow bridges and
awkward turnings were negotiated at top speed, and seemed to be cleared
more by good luck than skilled driving; but still the pace was not
sufficiently hard for Mrs. Delarayne, who, sitting almost erect in the
car, with neck craned and eyes fixed on the farthest horizon, spoke
scarcely a word to her companion.

The mother instinct had been roused in the heart of this elegant,
youth-loving widow,--that, and also the complex emotions provoked by the
fact that, since her last momentous interview with Lord Henry, she had
not heard from him.

It had cost her a good deal to decide upon this step. For reasons which
she had refrained from investigating, she had not introduced Lord Henry
to her daughters. At first the omission had been the outcome of a series
of pure accidents, quite beyond her control. Then, as she acquired the
habit of meeting him alone, or at least unaccompanied by her offspring,
her relationship to him had at last seemed to derive part of its
essential character from this very exclusiveness. He appeared to belong
to her. The thought of one of her daughters becoming perhaps attached to
him filled her with vague qualms, as if her relationship to him would
thereby be marred. Thenceforward intention or design began to take the
place of accident, and her daughters had been rigorously excluded
whenever Lord Henry and the widow met.

And now, in a moment of stress, in a mood of deep anxiety concerning a
daughter who, despite the radical difficulty of daughter-and-mother
relationships, had been on the whole singularly devoted and sensible,
she had resolved to reverse the old order, to invite Lord Henry to "The
Fastness," and thus necessarily to let her daughters meet him.

The sight of the blundering local practitioner that morning had revealed
to her the danger of excluding Lord Henry any longer from her family
affairs. Her difficulties had become too heavy. She knew that he and he
alone could assist her; and she determined to enlist his help. Thus her
principal "secret" man, the most cherished of all her clandestine male
attachments, was to be brought by her own hand, by her own act and
exertion, into the presence of charms far more magnetic, far more
irresistible than any she could now hope to wield, and which were all
the more apparent to her for being so much like her own. This was indeed
a surrender of principle which showed that Mrs. Delarayne's maternal
instinct had been moved to action; but its energy in this case,
creditable as it was, fell so far short of what it might have been in
the case of a beloved son, that the widow far from being happy, was
conscious only of being urged by painful duty upon the errand she was
now fulfilling.

The presence of Leonetta in the car, though an insoluble mystery to the
child herself, was accounted for simply as an obvious manoeuvre on the
part of an angry and ingenious woman of the world, to retaliate to some
extent upon the chief cause of all her trouble, the annoyance and
disturbance he had occasioned her. But she was too sensible to upbraid
the girl herself. She knew how fatally decisive opposition might prove
at this stage in Leonetta's sudden excitement over Denis Malster, and
she resolved to be guided in the whole of the complicated business by
the sure hand of Lord Henry.

To Leonetta's secretly guilty heart, however, her mother's silence
seemed to remove the one possible explanation that yet remained for her
having been made to drive to Ashbury; and by the time three quarters of
the journey had been accomplished, she resigned herself to a mood of
mystified boredom.

Occasionally her mother would mutter anxiously: "I wonder whether Lord
Henry will be in";--but that was all. Her affability and good nature
seemed to be the same as usual.

At last the car drew up at the northern outskirts of Ashbury, before a
building that appeared to Leonetta as unlike her mental image of a
sanatorium as anything could possibly be. It was a large building with a
white stucco front, badly cracked all over,--evidently a sort of old
manor house of about the period of George IV,--and the sight of the
smart motor cars drawn up on either side of the road in front of its
partly dilapidated gate, seemed but to enhance the general impression of
decay which characterised both the house and its surroundings.

The string of cars, however, brought a smile to Mrs. Delarayne's lips,
for they showed that Lord Henry's clinique was open that day.

"Now wait for me here, in the car," she said in her most positive
manner, "however long I am."

Leonetta and Cleopatra knew from experience that when their mother spoke
in this way she would brook no disobedience; and so throwing off her
dust cloak, Leonetta settled herself in the car to see what interest she
could derive from watching the activity at the gate.

Mrs. Delarayne's card sufficed to bring the matron hurrying down with
the assurance that Lord Henry would see her next. He was very busy, and
had been hard at work for at least a fortnight. There was a room full of
people waiting.

"Unusually hard at work!" Mrs. Delarayne observed.

"Yes," replied the matron, "quite exceptional."

"And why is that?" the widow enquired.

"We think it is the heat. The dog days seem somehow to increase nervous
trouble in quite a number of people,--at least so Lord Henry says."

"Then you may be sure it is so," said Mrs. Delarayne emphatically. She
was taken to a private room, and there in a few minutes Lord Henry
joined her.

He listened with his usual earnestness to all she had to tell him, and
learned as much as he could from the description of her untrained
observation of Cleopatra's symptoms.

"What is it, Lord Henry,--do tell me,--that makes grown-up men of the
present day so susceptible to raw flappers? You surely have an
explanation!"

"I have," Lord Henry replied, smiling in his malicious way. "It is
accounted for by the whole trend of modern sentiment and modern
prejudice. It is in the air. It is the result of the nineteenth
century's absurd exaltation of rude untrammelled nature. It really
amounts to anarchy, because it is always accompanied by a certain
feeling of hostility towards law and culture. Hence the love of wild
rugged moors and mountains which is a modern mania."

"Oh, didn't the ancients admire these things?" the lady exclaimed a
little crestfallen.

"Of course they didn't," Lord Henry replied. "Hence, too, the ridiculous
present-day exaltation of childhood, because children are stupidly
supposed to trail 'clouds of glory' from whence they come, as that old
spinster Wordsworth assures us. In fact everything immature or
uncultivated is supposed to be sacrosanct. Of course that young man,
Denis Malster, must be a sentimentalist, too, and he probably wants
kicking badly; but it is not entirely his fault. The sentiment, as I
say, is in the air. We are all threatened with infection. They had it in
the eighteenth century in France."

"What can I do?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded.

"Nothing!"

"But I can't let Cleopatra fall about in all directions,--she'll kill
herself."

"What did the doctor say?"

"Need you ask?"

"Prescribed iron and strychnine, I suppose. Or did he suggest cold
baths?"

"No, as you say, he prescribed iron, quinine, and strychnine."

Lord Henry glanced at his note-book.

"Of course, I am absolutely full up. But--but----"

Mrs. Delarayne fidgeted.

"I'm afraid I shall have to come if I'm to do any good. My senior
assistant here will have to do the best he can, that's all."

Although Mrs. Delarayne was quite prepared for this, she had hoped even
until the last that Lord Henry might be able to treat Cleopatra from a
distance, and that she would therefore be spared the duty of having him
at Brineweald. It was a hard pill to swallow, but she took it
gracefully.

"When can you come?" she asked with forced cheerfulness.

"Can you send the car for me at about quarter to eight this evening?"

Mrs. Delarayne promised to do this, and the young man rose.

She held his hand for some time as they said good-bye, and gazed
longingly into his face. It seemed to her that after this last meeting,
alone, on their old terms, nothing could any longer be quite the same.
He would become the friend of other members of her family. He would no
longer be her private refuge, her nook-and-corner intimate, her own
friend, her secret.

"Lord Henry," she pleaded on their way downstairs, "would you advise me
to say anything to Leonetta?"

"What can you say?" he protested.

"My sister says I ought to scold the child for what she calls her 'fast'
way with young men."

"Oh, nonsense!" Lord Henry exclaimed. "What can you tell the girl?--to
be less fascinating, to be less beautiful, to be less full of life? That
would be as futile as it would be deforming. You can only watch her so
that she does not come to harm, or fall into the hands of a villain. You
cannot moralise. I think you have been wonderful to restrain yourself so
far. But continue doing so."

"You see, I remember what I was at her age!" the widow admitted
bashfully.

Lord Henry laughed, and in a moment she laughed with him.

He accompanied her to the door, and feeling very much relieved she
rejoined her daughter.

       *       *       *       *       *

At half-past four that afternoon, just as the car bearing away Lord
Henry's last out-patient, had glided out of the drive, he sent for St.
Maur.

The day had been a particularly heavy one. Unfortunate, miserable, and
beautiful girls, with everything they could wish for, had come in their
dozens for the last month, with nervous tics that utterly marred their
beauty and blighted their lives. He had seen no less than three that
day. Business men, Army men, clergymen, married women, mothers, each
with some kind of nervous catch in their voices, uncontrollable spasms
in their limbs, stammers, or obsessions,--everyone was now beginning to
hear of Lord Henry's wonderful success in dealing with such cases, and
he was getting inconveniently busy.

Only a few were perhaps aware that he derived most of his skill in the
handling of these nervous disorders from the teaching of a certain
Austrian Jew of brilliant genius; but even those who knew this fact also
recognised that he had shown such enormous ability in adapting the
principles of his Semitic master to modern English conditions that he
was entitled to be regarded quite as much as an innovator as a disciple.

What Lord Henry had done could have been accomplished only by an
Englishman of exceptional intelligence. He had discovered that the
almost universal feature of nervous abnormalities in England, which were
not the outcome of trauma or congenital disease, arose out of the
national characteristic of "consuming one's own smoke." He had been the
first to demonstrate with scientific precision that the suppression of
Catholicism in England, with its concomitant proscription of the
confessional box from the churches, had laid the foundation of three
quarters of the nation's nervous disabilities. He had thus called
attention to yet one more objectionable and stupid feature of the
Protestant Church, and one which was perhaps more nauseating, more
sordid, than any to which his friend Dr. Melhado was so fond of
pointing. Thus he called his sanatorium in Kent "The Confessional," and
his methods, there, followed pretty closely the methods of the mediæval
Church.

He would point out that it was this absence of the rite of confession
that made people in Protestant countries so conspicuously more
self-conscious than the inhabitants of Catholic countries. For nothing
leads to self-consciousness more certainly than the attempt constantly
to consume one's own smoke.

"The independence, individualism, and natural secrecy of the English
character, together with the enormous amount of sex suppression that
English Puritanism involves," he used frequently to say, "leads to an
incredible amount of consumption of their own smoke by millions of the
English people. Large numbers of these people are able to digest the
fumes, others fall ill with nervous trouble owing to the poison
contained in the vapours they try to dispose of in secrecy."

His startling successes had all been based upon the recognition of this
fundamental fact. "But," as he said, "instead of these people keeping
well through the ordinary exercise of their religion, they have, owing
to their absurd Protestant beliefs, to pay me through the nose for
providing them with a scientific instead of a sacerdotal confessional
box."

Nevertheless, the hard work was beginning to tell, and as he waited for
St. Maur and recalled the circumstances of Mrs. Delarayne's visit, it
struck him that it would not be unwise to avail himself of that lady's
need of him in order perhaps to take a short holiday.

Truth to tell, he was a little satiated with Society's nervous wrecks.
You cannot hold your nose for long over any kind of smoke without being
nauseated; but the fumes which men and women have tried to consume
themselves, and failed, have this peculiarity, that they are perhaps
more foetid, more unsavoury, more asphyxiating, than any that can be
produced by the combustion of the most obnoxious and malodorous
chemicals.

St. Maur observed his friend's condition as he entered the room.

"Hard day?" he enquired.

"Very."

"I thought so. Cheques have been coming in pretty plentifully too. Any
celebrities?"

"One M.P. and one Canon,--the rest ordinary, or rather extraordinary men
and women. But don't let us talk about it; my stomach's turned as it
is. I'm going to take a few days' holiday, Aubrey."

St. Maur in his astonishment had to sit down.

"Mrs. Delarayne has just been here. Her daughter seems to be an
interesting case of self-surrender and inversion of reproductive
instinct owing to repeated rebuffs. She is now at the self-immolating
stage. Rather dangerous. Falls about. Her knees give way. Might cut her
head open. Great struggle for supremacy apparently with flapper sister.
Both passionate girls, of course. Only thrown up sponge after hard and
unsuccessful fight. Local doctor orders iron, quinine, and strychnine.
It's a wonder he didn't order brimstone and treacle. Mother doesn't
understand the condition at all, but is sufficiently wise to suspect
that the behaviour of a certain young man with fascinating flapper
sister may be contributory."

"Can't she come here?" asked St. Maur.

"Well, she could. But it is one of those cases in which, if I want to do
any real good, I must watch conditions on the spot."

"When do you leave?"

"In an hour or two. The car's coming to fetch me."

He rose, looked down with grave disapproval at his baggy trousers, and
flicked a speck or two of dust from his jacket.

"Aubrey, dear boy, I want you to make me look smart,--do you think it
can be managed?" He smiled in his irresistible way, and St. Maur had to
laugh too. "You evidently think it quite impossible," he added.

"No, not at all, you ass!" St. Maur objected. "I'm always telling you
that you can look the smartest man in England if you choose. You fellows
who are habitually dowdy create a most tremendous effect when, for once,
you really dress in a rational fashion."

Lord Henry scratched his head and glanced dubiously down at his clothes
again.

"I suppose these would do," he said.

St. Maur expostulated with scorn. "Where are all your things? You've got
some presentable clothes, only you never wear them; or if you do, you
wear the wrong ties or the wrong shirts, or the wrong socks with them."

"Have you got your crow's nest here?" Lord Henry demanded.

St. Maur nodded.

"Drive me to the cottage, then," said the elder man, throwing out his
arms dramatically, "and get me up to kill!"

St. Maur was interested, and showed it in his glance.

"Don't be alarmed, dear boy," said Lord Henry. "I may have to play a
part down at Brineweald."

St. Maur did as he was bid, and the two spent about an hour and a half
in Lord Henry's bedroom, sorting out ties, collars, shirts, lounge
suits, dress clothes, and boots and shoes.

At last Lord Henry was clothed, and, as St. Maur had truthfully
prophesied, looked the very paragon of a well-dressed man. Indeed, not
only was the contrast with his usual self so bewildering as to banish
all sense of proportion in estimating the splendour of his
transformation but the singular nobility of his face, with its wise,
youthful brow and deep, thoughtful eyes, also added such a curious
piquancy to his fashionable attire, that the general effect was little
short of startling. It is always so. Dress your scholar, your thinker,
your poet, in clothes that Saville Row has carefully designed and
carried out for a Society peacock, and the result is not a member of the
_phasianidæ_, but a golden eagle. It is as if the art of the tailor or
shirt maker were grateful for once to adorn something more than a mere
dandy. That depth of the eye, that wise and learned mouth, those
intelligent and almost understanding hands, the noble studious
brow,--all these embellishments added to the figure of the ordinary man,
give a certain finish to well-made garments, which these in their turn
impart to the aspect of the scholar; and the result is an effect of
completeness which is perhaps the highest product of the fashion, as
well as the taste, of any Age.

Perhaps it is because it is so rarely seen that it is so overwhelmingly
attractive.

"Are you sure this is right?" Lord Henry demanded, scrutinising his
image without a trace of recognition, in the long wardrobe mirror of his
room, and lightly fingering a tie that St. Maur had lent him.

"Yes!" St. Maur cried in alarm; "for Heaven's sake don't touch it!"

On the floor lay the young nobleman's portmanteau, partly filled with
St. Maur's shirts, collars, and ties; and in a large suit-case
sufficient clothes to provide him with decent variety. St. Maur had
drilled him carefully in the combination of socks, shirts, ties, and
suits, and had gone so far as to pack certain groups of things together,
in special sections, so that at Brineweald no mistake should be made.

"You are a marvel, Aubrey!" ejaculated Lord Henry, twisting about in
front of the mirror. "I used to dress like this years ago, but I had
completely forgotten how to do it."

"It's you who are the marvel," St. Maur exclaimed, contemplating his
friend with a critical and approving eye.

They returned to the Sanatorium to partake of a light dinner. The porter
stared as he opened the door, and could scarcely believe his eyes. The
matron was unusually self-conscious as she received the parting
instructions from her chief, and the nurses all turned their heads in
Lord Henry's direction as they sped hither and thither, unable to
understand the meaning or the object of the strange metamorphosis.

"The gorgeous vestments of the priest are all part of the general
scheme," Lord Henry whispered to St. Maur, as he stepped into Sir
Joseph's car.

"Rather!" St. Maur cried after him; and in a few moments the car was
well on its way.




CHAPTER XII


Except to Sir Joseph, Mrs. Delarayne had revealed nothing about the
nature of her journey to Ashbury to any member of the party at
Brineweald. Lord Henry's visit was to be a surprise. She wished to
safeguard Cleopatra from all suspicion that his arrival that evening
might be connected with her indisposition, and contented herself with
assuring her child that, having heard that he was overworked and very
much run down, she had gone over to him in order to urge him to take a
holiday. She merely hoped, she said, that he would be able to follow her
advice and come to Brineweald.

The afternoon was spent by the whole of the two households in paying a
visit to Canterbury. Under Mrs. Delarayne's vigilant eye, Leonetta and
Denis Malster had therefore been very discreet, and as the cars returned
in the evening, Sir Joseph was firmly of the opinion that his idol had,
with her customary art, slightly exaggerated the attentions which his
private secretary was paying to her younger daughter.

Dinner at Brineweald Park was over, the younger people, except
Cleopatra, who had gone to bed, had dispersed themselves over the
grounds as usual and Mrs. Delarayne, Miss Mallowcoid, and Sir Joseph
were sitting on the terrace finishing their coffee, when Sir Joseph's
head chauffeur was seen walking towards the steps with his junior,
bearing Lord Henry's Gladstone bag and suit-case.

"Where did you leave Lord Henry?" Mrs. Delarayne cried.

"He told me to drive straight to the garage, ma'am," replied the man,
"and bring the luggage here by hand."

"Yes," Sir Joseph exclaimed, in the bullying tones he usually adopted
with his servants; "but can't you answer a question? Where did you leave
his lordship?"

"He left the car at the Brineweald Gate," the man answered, "and said he
would take a walk in the grounds, sir."

"Oh, that's all right!" Mrs. Delarayne remarked, and the men moved on
with their load.

It was twilight. The lady scanned the stretch of park that lay before
her, and discovering no sign of life, turned to Sir Joseph.

"I hope he will find his way," she said.

"Couldn't possibly help it, I should have thought," snapped Miss
Mallowcoid.

"Oh, but he's so tiresome sometimes," replied the widow. "He's so
incorrigibly absent-minded."

Brineweald Park was one of the largest in the whole of the West Kent
districts. Its confines stretched to the straggling outskirts of four
villages: Brineweald to the south-west, Hedlinge to the north,
Headstone to the east, and Sandlewood to the south-east. Paths cutting
diagonally through the Park, at a respectful distance from the house,
joined all these outlying places one to another, and the inhabitants of
all four villages were allowed a right of way, provided they conducted
themselves with due propriety and did no damage. It was a favourite
recreation ground for the children of the locality, but it was so vast
that it was but seldom a stranger was ever encountered in the grounds.

The house, which was a large white building, three stories high, of
Georgian design, stood on an eminence overlooking the whole
country-side; and to the south a series of terraced lawns flanked by
steps descended as far as the broad drive leading to the Brineweald
Gate.

A large wild and wooded tract lay in the direction of Sandlewood, where
Sir Joseph preserved his game, and where there were rabbits in
abundance; while joining Brineweald to Hedlinge there was a small
fast-running stream, called the Sprigg, which at certain points in its
course, fell in picturesque cascades, surmounted by rockeries and
ornamental foot-bridges. In the neighbourhood of these, on either bank,
Sir Joseph had also built seats and bowers, and in the summer these
resting-places were the coolest in the whole park.

It was towards one of these cascades that, on the evening in question,
Lord Henry idly wandered. The vast and peaceful expanse of the grounds
delighted him, and knowing the pertinacity and loquacity of his fair
admirer, he wished to have both his walk and his first view of his new
abode alone, before presenting himself at the house.

Dimly in the gathering dusk, he discerned the outline of a rustic
bridge, and guided by the sound of plashing waters, directed his
footsteps towards it. Then above the murmur of the stream he heard the
ripple of a girl's ecstatic laughter, followed by what appeared to be
high words between two men, and then more laughter, followed by more
high words.

There was evidently a party round the bridge, and they seemed to be
engaged in a fairly acrimonious discussion. He distinctly heard the
words, Inner Light, Incandescence, Spiritualism, God-head, First Cause.

The argument was evidently religious, and it was conducted chiefly by
the men, with the rest of the party as audience and occasional chorus.

He approached stealthily. A big dark shadow against the moonlit sky
gradually assumed definition on the other side of the stream. And from
the depths of that shadow came the voices to which he had been
listening.

As he drew nearer, he recognised the shape of a bower in the mass of
shadow he had seen, and within it vaguely guessed the form of human
faces. It was evidently a large party. He could distinguish at least
half-a-dozen different voices.

He stepped on to the bridge, and leant against the rail. There was a
momentary pause in the discussion in the bower. Evidently its occupants
were taking stock of him. The subject of their argument, however,
interested him, and he stood motionless, hoping they would resume. He
could have represented but a shadow to them, even though the steadily
waxing light of the moon fell directly upon his head and shoulders; and
he rightly divined that, as other people besides the inhabitants of
Brineweald Park would probably enjoy the right of using the grounds,
they could not possibly tell who he was.

Gradually the discussion was resumed.

"What you don't seem to see," said a voice, which to Lord Henry appeared
to reveal the arrogance of its owner, "is that your Inner Light is but a
vague and vapid abstraction, a mere whiff of the whisky bottle, but not
the whisky itself."

Here followed a delighted feminine laugh, full of music and malice.

"And how do you hope," continued the arrogant voice, "ever to be able to
build anything upon a vaporous abstraction? What authority can a spook
have? What appeal to love, to fear, to reverence, to worship?"

"Come to bed, Gerald!" said a rather sweet feminine voice, which was
half-drowned in the general laughter it seemed to provoke. "These
discussions never lead to anything, and I'm sick of them. They only
disturb your sleep."

"Half a minute, Mrs. Tribe," said another man's voice, which Lord Henry
had not heard before, "we have reached an interesting point here. Do let
us just settle that!"

"But my husband can only feel these things," continued the soft sweet
female voice, "he cannot argue about them. You only laugh at him, so
what's the good?"

"I'm not laughing, am I?" said the arrogant voice.

"No, but you make others laugh," persisted the soft sweet voice.

"Leave them to me," interposed a weak male voice, which Lord Henry
recognised immediately as that of the Incandescent Gerald. And there was
a note so pathetic in the feeble strains of it, that the listener could
not help thinking of a hare being overtaken by harriers.

"How can you invite the enlightened nineteenth century to accept the
idea of a godhead that is anything else than an abstraction?" continued
the weak male voice. "Why, to personify your god is to limit him. How
can a god be limited?"

"Bravo, old Tribe!" cried a boy's voice, "that's a jolly good point. Now
what have you got to say to that, Malster?"

"To understand him at all," replied the arrogant voice, which Lord Henry
now concluded must be Denis Malster's, "is in any case to limit him to
the compass of your understanding, even if that can only grasp a monkey
on a stick; so why not proceed to personal limitations at once? It
makes things much easier for the bulk of humanity, and it also makes
love and fear, and therefore morality possible. Without a personal god
you feel as if you are dealing only with a natural element, or natural
law. But who minds if the sea watched him while he picks his neighbour's
pocket? Who cares that the sky is overhearing him when he courts and
kisses his neighbour's wife?"

The remark provoked wild outbursts of laughter, followed by the weak
voice, which said, "Don't, Agnes, don't fidget! Leave my coat-sleeve
alone!"

Lord Henry having formed a fairly accurate estimate of the situation,
and realising that little Mrs. Tribe was evidently miserable, felt he
could endure it no longer. In any case Malster was having it too much
his own way with his chorus of sympathetic females, and so, turning
towards the group in the bower, the young nobleman advanced a few paces
towards them.

"Forgive me," he began, "but the subject of your discussion, which I
could scarcely help overhearing, interests me enormously. Might I be
allowed to join in it too?"

Nobody recognised him. From the refined, gentle manner of his speech, he
might have been one of the local vicars taking a stroll. Only Malster
stirred, as if he felt there was something oddly familiar about the
speaker, but seeing that he had no reason to suppose that Lord Henry was
anywhere within twenty miles of the place, the identity of the stranger
did not immediately occur to him. There was a pause, and then Malster
said:

"Move up a bit, Leo! Yes, certainly, sir; we should be glad if you
would."

"I'm tired," said the sweet soft female voice, which Lord Henry, as he
sat down, realised that he had rightly ascribed to Mrs. Tribe, "I want
to go indoors."

"One moment," said the weak voice, which had now become more than
usually agitated.

"To begin with," Lord Henry said, "I should like to join issue most
violently with the gentleman who has been arguing in favour of a
personal god. Nothing,--in the last two centuries has been more fatal to
Europe and humanity than this."

There was a general movement as if the whole party wished to draw closer
to the speaker, and Stephen Fearwell, who was leaning against one of the
outside uprights of the bower, swung round until his head was well
inside the shelter.

"Good man!" he ejaculated enthusiastically, as he performed this
movement. And Lord Henry recognised his voice as that of the boy who had
previously endeavoured to support Gerald Tribe. It was evident that he
could feel no deep concern about the issue. He merely wanted Gerald
Tribe to get an innings for once against Malster.

"You see, as the supporter of a personal god has very truly pointed
out," continued Lord Henry, "the morality of any race, or nation, or
group of nations, who believe in a personal god, comes ultimately to
derive its authority from the will of that personal god."

"Quite so!" said Denis in the same arrogant tone he had used all the
time.

"Yes, but with what result?" Lord Henry demanded.

"With the result--" began the Incandescent Gerald.

"Leave it to him, you silly!" whispered the soft, sweet, female voice
with some eagerness. It was clear that Mrs. Tribe had suddenly changed
her mind about going to bed.

"With the result," continued Lord Henry emphatically, "that the moment
the belief in the personal god declines, as on analysis it must decline,
morality declines with it. For morality in such cases is bound up, as
you say, with the belief in a personal god. Civilisation, in fact, is
once again on the rocks and society is no longer safe--why? Because by
making your moral code issue from the lips of your personal god, it has
become so much waste paper now that your personal god is beginning to be
felt as an absurdity. Thus in a religion with a personal god, heresy
always kills two birds with one stone. But once the bird morality is
killed, it takes a new civilisation and a new culture to hatch another
one. Man can survive without a belief in a personal god; he cannot
survive without a morality."

"But a personal god," objected Denis, "is omniscient, all-seeing. He is
assumed to know all men's actions, and they dare not do wrong precisely
because they know he is watching them. That surely is the best safeguard
to decent conduct; it is in fact the meaning of conscience!"

"Yes, I was coming to that point," said Lord Henry gravely, "and what is
the outcome of the thousands of years of belief in this omniscient god,
who can see all men's action? Why, sir, whoever you are," Lord Henry
exclaimed, his voice swelling with indignation, "the result is that
to-day things have come to such a pass that it is scarcely possible to
trust one man or woman in the whole of these islands to do the right
thing against their own interests, when your god, and your god alone is
their witness. That is the state to which your belief in an omniscient
personal god has reduced us, and you know that what I say is true."

The Incandescent Gerald was so jubilant that he wished to laugh
outright; but his keen eager wife prevented him. She had no wish to save
the feelings of her husband's tormentor, but she was too much fascinated
and spellbound by what she had been able to divine of Lord Henry's
personality to brook the coarse interruption. Leonetta and Vanessa were
beginning to be conscious of this feeling too, and stared eagerly
through the darkness to try to catch a glimpse of the powerful stranger.

"People have got so used to violating even the most elementary
principles of savage morality," continued Lord Henry, "without the
thunder of your almighty descending on their heads, that there is
scarcely a man or woman in Europe to-day who really fears your god as
their only witness, who really troubles about your god as their only
witness, or who even gives him a passing thought, when they stand
absolutely alone before the temptation to perpetrate some mean,
despicable or dishonourable action."

Lord Henry was at his best. His words were uttered with extreme
precision, his manner was emphatic and passionate, and his mysterious
presence in the party only magnified the impression that these
characteristics made upon his listeners.

"May I ask who you are?" Denis Malster demanded, leaning forward in the
darkness.

"Certainly," replied Lord Henry suavely. "I am Lord Henry Highbarn. I
have come here this evening for a rest and a change."

A stillness as of death fell on the party, and the excited breathing of
all present could be heard.

"I thought I knew you," Denis exclaimed at last, recovering from the
unpleasant shock the announcement had given him. "But I couldn't for the
life of me think who you could be."

"Do they know you are here?" Leonetta gasped.

"I presume so," said Lord Henry, "my luggage was taken up about an hour
ago."

He rose, and immediately the rest of the party did likewise. Out on the
bank of the Sprigg, in the moonlight, Denis then proceeded to introduce
all those present, and the whole gathering slowly crossed the bridge and
moved towards the house.

Lord Henry, with Denis on his left and Leonetta on his right, was in the
van, but the others clustered round as closely as they could, and
conversation was general.

Women of whatever station in life and from whatever clime, have a very
acute sense of strength and power in the opposite sex. If modern society
has dispensed with the arena and with the tilting jousts of chivalry, it
has nevertheless not deadened either women's passion for the tournament,
or the keenness with which they divine the merits of their respective
knights. And if argument is the only remaining form in which that clash
of arms of olden times is witnessed by them to-day, it is with no
diminished interest or perspicuity that they register its results.
Ordinary games hardly meet all the demands of the true joust; for, in
the first place, they do not include to the same extent as argument,
that formidable element in modern knightly equipment, the intellect;
and, secondly, because to the most thick-skinned there is something so
much more mortifying, ignominious, and humiliating in being beaten in
argument than in losing a game, that argument still retains, though in
an attenuated and spiritualised form, something of the excitement and
gravity of armed conflict.

Denis Malster was well aware of all this,--indeed had he not thrown
down his gauntlet every night to the Incandescent Gerald precisely
because he knew how well he himself looked in the lists, and how well he
tilted? But perhaps Lord Henry was even better aware than Denis of the
important part played by intellectual male conflict in the presence of
women; and he moreover realised more certainly than Denis could possibly
have guessed, the precise effect on the female mind of repeated
victories in this modern and polite form of tournament.

Certainly as Leonetta, Vanessa, Agatha, and Mrs. Tribe hastened their
footsteps to catch every word that fell from Lord Henry's lips, they
were largely animated by the natural curiosity provoked by the presence
of a distinguished stranger; but in their eagerness to get close up to
him and to be in constant earshot of his voice, there was also the tacit
admission, possibly unrealised by any of them as yet, that in him they
had recognised a knight of peculiar power and of brilliant style.

They had not concerned themselves with the merits of the actual point
that had been at issue. All they felt was that a certain speaker had
spoken, not as one of the scribes, but as one having authority, and that
the former champion of the lists had for once been worsted in their
presence.

All this was in the air, unuttered, and even imperfectly present in
unconsciousness. Only Denis Malster, a little uneasy and a little
resentful, and Lord Henry, as usual perfectly serene and urbane, could
have accurately explained what had taken place.

       *       *       *       *       *

Lord Henry had been right. Cleopatra had given up. Jaded by the
unremitting exertions of a week's struggle for supremacy with her
sister, quite unable to face another week of similarly exhausting
effort, and unwilling to acknowledge herself defeated, illness had come
almost as a boon, almost as an angel of mercy. Something seemed to have
snapped inside her,--her main-spring it appeared to be; and now she
hugged her ailment, her weakness, or whatever it was, because it seemed
to offer her the chance of a graceful retreat before her ebbing forces
compelled her to surrender.

She did not come to breakfast now, and retired early. She half hoped,
perhaps, that the very air of fragility and pathetic languor, which she
had half consciously adopted, would draw even keener attention than had
her former attitude of robust equality with her sister. Vanity is full
of resources when it is wounded. But her attacks of sudden faintness she
could not control; they represented the only genuine feature of her
indisposition,--at least they, and the continued insomnia which was an
important symptom.

On the first evening of his visit, therefore, Lord Henry did not see
her, neither did she know as she tossed about in her bed at "The
Fastness" that he was anywhere within call. Instinctively she felt that
her mother's deep sympathy and anxiety to help were with her, but it
never occurred to her that the maternal devotion to her would ever
extend to extreme measures.

Meanwhile Lord Henry was quietly taking stock of everybody at Brineweald
Park. An hour in the drawing-room there, after his walk in the grounds,
supplied him with much useful information; and by the time the car
arrived to take the Delarayne household back to "The Fastness," he had
already formed certain very valuable conclusions.

It was clear to him that Denis Malster was head and shoulders above the
other men of the party, and but for a certain priggishness of manner
which, though offensive, was not altogether unamenable to correction, by
far the most attractive English male he had seen for some time. He had
almost forgotten their first encounter at the Inner Light meeting, and
was more favourably impressed than he had expected to be by the young
man who had quite evidently been the cause of Mrs. Delarayne's domestic
troubles.

Conversely, the impression Lord Henry had made upon Denis Malster had
been unfavourable in the extreme. Here was a man who could not be relied
upon to be the same two days running. On the occasion of his first visit
to Bullion Ltd. he had looked a vagabond; his clothes had hung in
shapeless folds about his body, completely concealing whatever symmetry
it might have possessed.

Denis remembered the faded green tie and the badly fitting collar he
had seen Lord Henry wearing at the Inner Light meeting, the same green
tie and badly fitting collar in which the young nobleman had had the
simplicity to be photographed for the _Bystander_ only a few weeks
previously,--and filled with consternation at the unaccountable
metamorphosis compared it with Lord Henry's present elegant neck-gear.

It was monstrous to be so unreliable, monstrous to be so saltatory, so
capricious, as to upset other people's surest reckonings.

On the following morning it was obvious that Denis had made a supreme
effort. It was an effect in white flannels with a superb foulard tie of
navy blue and wonderful white buckskin shoes. He reached the
breakfast-table at Brineweald Park unusually early, so eager was he to
discover what further sartorial devilry Lord Henry would be guilty of,
and he was not a little disappointed to find only Guy Tyrrell down.

"Hullo Malster!" cried Guy, looking up from a partly consumed dish of
pork chop. "What the hell's up,--are you going to be married?"

"Don't be an ass!" Denis replied, helping himself to devilled kidneys.

"You're looking a howling swell this morning," continued the junior
secretary.

"Oh, you mean my rig-out?" Denis enquired with a feeble pretence at not
having understood the meaning of Guy's remarks. "That's nothing. As a
matter of fact I hadn't tried these on since they were made, and I was
wondering what they were like."

"Oh, tell us what you think of Lord Henry!" Guy pursued after a while.

"What do you?" Denis retorted, endeavouring to show indifference.

"He's rather wonderful," Guy exclaimed.

"What do you mean--wonderful?" the other demanded with an unmistakable
sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Well, you know, smart in every sense of the word, brains and
everything."

If Guy had deliberately intended to give Denis indigestion he could not
have set about his task with greater scientific understanding.

In a moment Miss Mallowcoid appeared. Breakfast to her was an important
meal only when she was visiting. At other times she was satisfied with a
minute fish-cake, or a mere postage-stamp of thin bacon, particularly
when she had to show by example how megalosaurian was the appetite of
the frail Mrs. Gerald Tribe. She was quickly followed by Sir Joseph and
Mr. and Mrs. Tribe, and a few minutes later by Lord Henry himself.

At the sight of Lord Henry, Denis grew unusually silent and the Tribes
exceptionally voluble. Sir Joseph asked the conventional questions of
his new guest, and on receiving the customary conventional replies,
serenely continued his meal. Miss Mallowcoid, on the other hand,
insisted on attending with scrupulous unselfishness to the latest
arrival's wants, and encouraging him in every way to partake as
plentifully as she herself of the generous board.

Meanwhile covertly and methodically Denis Malster was busy confirming
his worst suspicions of this scion of the house of Highbarn, and his
final conclusion was that the young man was behaving with deliberate
malice.

Clad in a perfect grey flannel suit of graceful design in which even the
seams in black thread were made an attractive feature, and with a collar
and tie that had evidently been selected with taste, there was yet that
character of artless unconsciousness in his attire which gave Lord Henry
at once the appearance and the ease, without any of the traces of
effort, of a well-groomed man. Denis felt that no one could pertinently
have asked Lord Henry whether he was going to be married that day, and
yet there was a glamour about his person which was unmistakable.

"There is no means of anticipating the wiles of charlatans," he thought
as he finished his breakfast; and he braced himself for a difficult day.

Thus his imagination played with the new element that chance seemed to
have dropped in his path, and as he smoked his after-breakfast cigarette
on the terrace with Guy Tyrrell he was not in the happiest of moods.

Sir Joseph, the Tribes, Miss Mallowcoid, and Lord Henry were discussing
the programme of the day.

"I suppose I had better consult Mrs. Delarayne," said Lord Henry,
"before I dispose of any of my time. She will naturally----"

"Oh, don't trouble to do that!" Miss Mallowcoid exclaimed. "You are down
here for a rest, and must do just as you like, Lord Henry."

Sir Joseph, who was the only member of the party in Mrs. Delarayne's
secret, understood however what the young man meant. He might possibly
have to remain with Cleopatra.

"Quite right, Lord Henry," he said. "We really cannot do anything before
you see Mrs. Delarayne."

At that moment a thumping noise from the direction of Brineweald
announced the usual morning visit of young Stephen Fearwell, and sure
enough, up the main drive, at top speed, there appeared the familiar
silhouette of the youth on his motor-cycle. This time, however, he did
not seem to be alone, fair arms seemed to be clinging to him, and the
flutter of a dress and a sun-bonnet seemed outlined at his back.

The party on the terrace concentrated into a group at the top of the
steps, and the motor-cycle swung like a rocket round the last bend of
the drive.

"Why, if it's not that little terror, Leonetta!" cried Miss Mallowcoid.

Denis Malster made an impulsive movement to descend the steps and
checked himself. Never before had Leonetta accompanied Stephen like
this. What could it signify?

The cycle stopped, and in a moment the children were running up the
steps.

"Peachy has sent me for the morning at least," announced Leonetta, as
Sir Joseph greeted her, "and she wants Lord Henry to go to "The
Fastness" with Stephen at once, if he doesn't mind."

"Anything wrong?" Sir Joseph demanded.

It was difficult to imagine that such a sunny, happy messenger could
bring sad tidings, and Sir Joseph had to smile as he contemplated her.

"I believe Cleo has had another fall, or something," replied the girl.
"Anyhow, Agatha and Vanessa will be here in a minute, and Stephen of
course will come back. Peachy and Cleo will stay at home."

Leonetta eyed Lord Henry up and down as she spoke in that solemn
searching way in which virgins take stock of men. It was Nature
measuring the worth of one of her own products through the medium of
another of her own products.

"Am I to go at once?" Lord Henry enquired, glancing for a moment at
Leonetta, and then turning to Sir Joseph.

"Yes, please," said Leonetta and Stephen together.

Lord Henry descended the steps while Stephen and Leonetta both assured
him that he could make himself quite comfortable on the back of the
motor-cycle. It was noticeable, however, that he paid more attention to
Stephen than to the girl.

"I can order the car, and we can all go to the beach," said Sir Joseph.

Denis Malster was jubilant. There stood Leonetta, a dream of beauty in
her simple cotton dress and sun-bonnet, magnetic in her grace and
luxuriant health, and Lord Henry was to be out of the way for at least
three hours.

At last the couple on the motor-cycle were ready. "Sorry you're leaving
us," cried Sir Joseph. "But we'll see you later."

Leonetta remained at the foot of the steps waving her hand, but Lord
Henry took no notice; he merely flourished his hat to Sir Joseph and
Miss Mallowcoid on the terrace.




CHAPTER XIII


Mrs. Delarayne, hatless and tearful with impatience, was at the gate
waiting for the sound that was to announce the arrival of Lord Henry.
Inside Cleopatra had just recovered from another fainting fit, and
Agatha, who was with her, had rendered valuable help. Mrs. Delarayne had
never considered her weeks at Brineweald as a source of joy; if this
continued, however, they would prove absolutely intolerable.

At last the familiar thumping sound became audible in the distance. Yes,
it was that dear boy Stephen, and someone was riding on the pillion-seat
of his cycle.

In a moment cyclist and passenger dismounted at Mrs. Delarayne's gate,
but the latter alone accompanied the lady into the house.

"Oh, Lord Henry," gasped the widow, "it is really very tiresome. Poor
Cleopatra has had another of her attacks, and I thought it would be best
if she saw you immediately afterwards. That's why I sent for you in all
that hurry."

"I'm afraid the attacks themselves can tell me little," observed Lord
Henry gravely. "It really didn't matter when I saw her. However, I
might just as well speak to her now."

"Half a minute," whispered Mrs. Delarayne, leaving him in the
drawing-room. "I'll go and prepare her." And so saying she vanished into
the adjoining apartment, which, as far as Lord Henry was able to tell
from a glimpse, appeared to be the billiard-room.

High words seemed to pass between the widow, her daughter, and Agatha;
for, although Mrs. Delarayne had closed the door behind her, Lord Henry
could distinctly catch snatches of their discussion. It was clear that
Cleopatra was resolutely objecting to see him, and that her mother and
Agatha were doing their utmost to induce her to alter her mind.

At last Mrs. Delarayne returned.

"Isn't it tiresome," she exclaimed, taking a chair, "now she absolutely
refuses to see you!"

"It's not surprising," observed Lord Henry, sitting down beside her.

"Yes, but she must see you; I insist," Mrs. Delarayne pursued.

"Her indisposition," muttered Lord Henry, "is probably a salutary
refuge. She imagines that she alone knows the cause of it, and that it
would therefore be utterly futile to be examined and worried by people
who cannot possibly trace it to its origin. She knows, moreover, that
even if it is traced to its origin, the discovery can only prove
humiliating to her pride."

"Yes, but----"

"We must manoeuvre."

The widow did not understand.

"I mean, if you and Agatha will only disappear, I'll walk into the room
and prevail upon her to make friends. That is to say," he added,
"provided she doesn't escape meanwhile."

Mrs. Delarayne fingered her necklace pensively, and jerked her head
forward once or twice in solemn silence.

"That's the only thing, I'm afraid," said Lord Henry.

The widow rose, still staring very thoughtfully before her.

"Don't make too heavy weather of it," continued Lord Henry. "It's not
serious. It will all be well in a day or two."

"Really?" she exclaimed brightening.

"Certainly," he said.

Mrs. Delarayne surveyed him a moment. She hadn't the faintest idea what
he was driving at, but such was her confidence in the soundness of his
judgment that she started on her way to fulfil his instructions. There
was but one circumstance that made her feel that Lord Henry was a trifle
unfamiliar to her on this visit, and that was his unusually well-groomed
appearance. In his present outfit he seemed just a little terrifying. It
was as if she divined that his more normal, his more fashionable
exterior on this occasion, made him accessible to other women besides
herself.

She smiled a little nervously and left the room, leaving the door ajar.

He rose as soon as she had gone, heard her say a few words to her
daughter and Agatha, and a second or two later, was given the signal
which announced that the ground was clear.

He entered the room as if by accident, glanced casually round, and in
doing so got a fleeting glimpse of Cleopatra.

She was lying back in a deep armchair, her chin resting in her hand. He
noticed that she raised her head, regarded him with an expression of
mingled interest, fear, and surprise, then slightly stirring in her
chair, looked about her for some means of escape. Her back was turned to
the light so that her face was in shadow, and with the object of leaving
her under the protection of the discreet lighting she had chosen, he sat
down facing her, with the whole glare of the sunlit garden upon him.

"Miss Delarayne," he began, "please don't move on my account. I don't
think I shall disturb you. I heard you would not see me. Quite right
too, perhaps. But surely there can be no harm in our talking, if it does
not annoy you."

The woman in Cleopatra now urged her to show more animation, beneath
this young man's gaze, than was compatible with her avowed condition of
extreme lassitude and feebleness.

"I only said I did not wish to see you," she declared, "because I felt
better alone."

He was a little staggered by the extraordinary beauty of this girl who
so far had not taken her eyes off him. He had expected that Mrs.
Delarayne's daughters would be beautiful,--and in Leonetta he had had
his expectations confirmed. In Cleopatra, however, as he surveyed her
then, he discerned a degree of nobility and pride, which were apparent
neither in her mother nor her sister, and which lent a singular
queenliness to her impelling charms.

"There, of course, you were wrong," he said with gentle persuasiveness,
blinking rapidly. "We are no longer wild beasts of prey who can creep
into caves to recover or die alone. We are human beings, social animals.
Two heads are better than one, even in the matter of getting well."

She frowned and her expression grew more solemn than ever. If this were
Lord Henry, the mental picture she had formed of him had evidently been
very far from the truth; nor had Denis Malster's description of him been
even fair. She wondered, as she examined his fine thoughtful head, and
handsome athletic figure, telling to such advantage in his impeccable
attire, what motive Denis could have had in saying what he had about the
young noblemen before her. She was deeply interested, and for the time
being this feeling overcame every other motive in her breast.

"If people don't understand you," she said, "it is surely better to be
alone."

He smiled in his roguish irresistible way. "If--" he repeated.

A slight flush sprang into Cleopatra's cheeks, and quickly vanished
again. He was distinctly attractive--almost bewildering. She was going
to expostulate: "Surely you don't imagine that," when something which
she read in his face, in his intelligent hands, and in his general
manner made her feel that the words would sound banal.

"I wish you wouldn't stay with me, Lord Henry," she pleaded. He rose.
Whatever she may have meant, the plea sounded sincere enough, and he did
not wish to harass her.

"Of course I won't," he said, "if it is unpleasant to you," and he moved
towards the door.

"You surely want to be out in the sun," she added quickly. "You don't
want to stay indoors. Besides I am better now."

"Yes," he said, with his fingers on the handle of the door leading to
the drawing-room. "One always feels a little stronger when one is
excited. That is only natural. The presence even of the meanest stranger
always causes a little excitement."

She sighed. She began to wish he would sit down again. "But I assure you
I feel quite well now." The conviction was gradually stealing over her
that it was ignominious to be ill in the neighbourhood of this young
man. She asked herself whether he had seen Leonetta, and what he thought
of her, and she was seized by an incontrollable shudder.

"You soon will be quite well," said Lord Henry gravely.

"How can you tell!" she exclaimed, smiling incredulously and with some
satisfaction too as she noticed that he left the door and returned to
his seat.

"Well, any way," he continued, "tell me just exactly what you feel. Try
to explain to me exactly how you feel just before you fall. I need
hardly tell you that it is of course not natural for a girl of your age
to have these sudden fits of collapse. Can you tell me about it?"

There was a pause, and then she replied, with a strain of defiance in
her voice: "I frankly don't know. It's something I can't explain."

"Is it something you frankly don't know, or something you can't
explain?" he demanded.

She looked up as she heard her reply repeated in that form, and was a
little discomfited.

"Will you try?" he added. "It is just possible, though, I admit, not
probable, that I may be able to help you when I know."

"Well--" she began, determined if possible that he at least should never
know the truth.

"Yes?" he interjected eagerly.

"Directly after lunch the day before yesterday," Cleopatra pursued, "--I
must tell you we had curried chicken for lunch,--I felt a heavy
sensation in the pit of my stomach. I felt sick and giddy, my hands grew
cold, and about tea-time, I was walking in this very room, and my knees
gave way."

He looked at her beneath lowered brows, as he tugged at his mesh of
hair. "So you think it is all a fit of indigestion," he said.

She wondered whether he knew that she was lying. "Yes," she said.

There was a pause, and he looked away from her.

"Remember, Miss Delarayne," he muttered after a while, "that it will be
difficult to start me off on a false scent, even if it is as savoury as
curried chicken."

Cleopatra started a little at this remark; she noticed his enigmatic
smile, and her brows twitched nervously.

"I don't see what you mean," she stammered.

"I mean," said Lord Henry, his head still bowed, and his free hand
picking imaginary atoms of fluff from his trousers, "that if you tell me
the truth, our two heads may make some progress. If you deliberately
mislead me, although the task will even then not be beyond the wit of
man, it will be a little more difficult."

"But I assure you, Lord Henry," she protested, "I am not trying to
mislead you."

"Come, Miss Delarayne, come!" he remonstrated. Then he added, after a
pause, "But perhaps I am wrong in assuming that you should feel any
confidence in me. After all, why should you?"

She had never yet been in the presence of a man who inspired such
complete confidence, or who made her desire so ardently to be up and
about, active and well in his presence. Nevertheless her indomitable
pride made her moderate the manner of her reply.

"What can I say?" she exclaimed, pretending to be at the end of her
resources.

He flicked an imaginary feather from his knee. "Shall I prompt you?" he
enquired.

His coolness at once mastered and terrified her.

"How can you!" she ejaculated, her resistance failing.

"Why haven't you told me, for instance," he began, "that you have
scarcely slept for five or six nights."

Her mouth fell. "Lord Henry!"

"Why haven't you said that last night, or perhaps for the last two
nights, you have tried a certain narcotic without much success? Sleep is
a very essential thing, Miss Delarayne. One cannot go without it with
impunity. You probably realise that."

She stammered the beginning of a denial, but the words died on her lips.
She was too stiff with alarm to be able to speak. After all, vanity is a
great power even in the noblest of us.

"Miss Delarayne," Lord Henry continued, "you and I can keep a secret. I
can at any rate. Let me see whether I cannot tell you why you have tried
to mislead me."

Her ears were hot, and she glanced involuntarily towards the garden
door. Had any one else than Lord Henry revealed a fraction of his
ability to pierce her secret she would have fled.

"A good suggestion," he exclaimed, following the direction of her eyes.
"Let's sit in the garden."

He opened the door, and she walked out in front of him,--stiff, proud,
and erect. He noticed a shadow running back into the house, and presumed
it was Mrs. Delarayne.

They reached the small marquee, two or three wicker chairs lay about the
lawn outside it, and they sat down. Now for the first time he could form
a just estimate of his companion's beauty, and he experienced some
difficulty in removing his glance from her. The stay at Brineweald had
tanned her face, and deepened the warm colour of her skin, and though
the recent vigils had somewhat deadened the brilliance of her eyes, they
still flashed with a dignity and independence that were a warning to any
one who might have thoughts of perpetrating an indiscretion in her
presence.

Lord Henry tugged at his mesh, and wondered whether he had better
proceed. This girl's secret, wrapped as it was in her pride and, worse
still, in her vanity, seemed a very sacred thing to penetrate. Never had
he felt that divination could lie so close to desecration as when he
watched this magnificent creature before him, making her last proud
stand in front of the humiliating cause of her breakdown. His heart went
out to her, however; he suddenly felt the impulse, not of the trained
psychologist to cure a patient, but of a gallant knight to save a
beautiful lady in distress. He was prepared to use every weapon in order
to defeat the dragon, and as his strongest weapons seemed to be his deep
knowledge of the human soul, and his long experience in curing it, he
proceeded on his old lines. But how different he was, notwithstanding,
from the Lord Henry of the Ashbury Sanatorium none knew better than
himself. He could no longer be cool and collected. He must fight with
the girl against the canker in her heart as if he himself also felt the
pain of it. He must tear it out and save her peace of mind, like the
therapeutist that he was; but he could not help also being the
fellow-sufferer, so deeply did he feel that he wished to share her woe
and her fears.

"Well," he said, "I was beginning to tell you why you wished to lead me
astray."

"I didn't wish to lead you astray," she cried, almost desperate lest he
should guess the truth.

"Very often," Lord Henry continued, "we can confide in a friend
concerning a blow directed at our hearts, in fact that is actually one
of the uses of friendship. But it is difficult sometimes to confess the
pain of a blow levelled at our self-esteem, at our vanity."

He looked discreetly away as he spoke, but he noticed that she stirred
at this point.

"Not only your heart and your womanly yearnings are at stake here, Miss
Delarayne," he pursued. "These when they are thwarted simply make one
sweetly miserable, languorously self-commiserating,--but it is your
pride and vanity that are concerned."

She regarded him now as one magnetised, hypnotised, petrified.

If every line of his face, and every sign in his whole person had not
convinced her of his exceptional character, she would have fled his
presence even now, never to confront him again.

"These are real savages when they are provoked," he went on suavely.
"What do they care for the destruction their anger brings upon your
body? They would devastate your whole beauty without scruple in order to
calm their tempestuous rage. They begin by undermining the trust you
feel in your own claims. They then proceed to keep you awake at night
and to toss you about in your bed, when you ought to be refreshing your
body with sleep; and, finally, when they have ravished your sleep, they
open your mind to all the hideous spectres and shapes that are always
waiting, like hungry unemployed, to get busy in a wakeful and anxious
brain."

"Lord Henry!" gasped the girl, starting as if to rise.

"I am saying these things for you, Miss Delarayne," he said quickly,
"because it is perhaps too much to expect you to say them yourself, and
because you will find that their expression will relieve you. Oh, if I
can only do that,--surely----"

She looked at him for a moment and noted the fervour in his face, the
energy in his hands, and the honest nobility of his eyes; and anxious as
she now felt to escape from his terrifying presence, she was riveted by
his personality and could not move.

"It was not only the prospect of having all your life to stroke the
cheeks of other people's children, Miss Delarayne, that you dreaded.
This is a natural, noble, splendid dread, it is true, which every woman
worthy of the name should feel when she reaches your age. But there is
something far more poisonous, far more harmful to your system in the
present situation, and that is the thought that you may have all your
life to stroke the cheeks of other people's children, thanks to a
creature who, delightful as she may be, you nevertheless rightly regard
not only as your subordinate, not only as your junior both in age and
claims, but also as one towards whom it is loathsome to you to feel any
such feelings as rivalry."

Cleopatra gripped the arms of her wicker chair, and turned eyes full of
horror upon her companion.

"It is this that is slowly causing your strength to ebb," he went on;
"it is this acid which is corroding your life."

She gasped. "But it is a very real and additional pain," she exclaimed
hoarsely.

"It is, of course," he assented. "It would be absurd to ignore it. Just
as it would be absurd to ignore the extra filip which your presence, or
your part in the business, adds to this, Leonetta's first affair. For
what is a man to her, after all? Another feather in her cap,--another
bauble! She has left school and her maiden's vanity,--we'll call it
self-esteem,--bids her at once try to confirm the high claims she
rightly thinks her beauty and her sex entitle her to make upon the
world. She wants to win her first crown as May Queen. No deeper passion
is involved. And should a man be induced, in his arrogance, to take
these first steps of hers seriously, she would regret all her life what
was merely a schoolgirl's whim. For society would take no pity on her,
and would compel her to spend her life with a creature of whom she had
only solicited the flattery of a season."

Cleopatra bowed her head, and toyed nervously with a bracelet. She was
breathing heavily, but was now showing no desire to escape.

"But there is a difference, a very deep difference," he continued,
"between the purchaser of a pearl necklet and the purchaser of a loaf of
bread. The first is acquiring merely another ornament, another set-off
to her beauty, another weapon in the fight for supremacy, and she
performs the act with a frivolous smile. The other is obtaining a
primitive and fundamental necessity, and she does it solemnly, aware as
she is of its real uses. The first is the schoolgirl receiving her first
attentions from a man; the second is the woman of passion who knows what
life has promised her."

"Lord Henry," Cleopatra ejaculated, "how wonderfully you understand!"

"What aggravates your pain a thousandfold is the thought you are being
robbed of a necessity, by one who uses it as a toy. You feel as a
starving child might feel who sees the loaf that has been snatched from
him being used as a football."

A tear trickled down Cleopatra's face. "That is wonderfully true," she
assented, and brushed the tear quickly away.

He paused and looked at her for a moment beneath lowered brows. A
wonderful serenity had come upon her, and her lips no longer seemed
tormented with words they did not dare to utter.

"What is so terrible, Lord Henry," she said at last, "what the world
does not seem to understand, and will not see, is that a girl with a
sister is placed in intimate, daily, and inevitable contact with the
very woman who is her most constant and most formidable rival. She sees
her grow up and gradually assume womanly shape. She watches the
development of every feature with eyes starting out of her head with
horror. While her sister is at the gawky age, she gets a short breathing
space, because a child at that time is so clumsy, so unattractive and
foolish. But all of a sudden this vanishes. The child becomes a woman,
startlingly beautiful and seductive. She realises it herself, and
naturally wants her successes, as Baby did."

"Who's Baby?" Lord Henry interrupted.

"My sister, Leonetta."

"Oh, I see--go on."

"Then you do everything you can to make her feel she is not grown up
yet. But it is hopeless. In vain you try to thrust her back into
childhood----"

"By calling her 'Baby' instead of 'Leonetta,' for instance," said Lord
Henry.

"Oh, of course!" Cleopatra cried. "I didn't think of that." Then she
continued after a while, "But of course they want to shine, and you can
do nothing. You are expected to love them, cherish them; you are even
expected to take an interest in their clothes, in their hair! You even
have to go and help put the finishing touches, when all the time you
dread seeing her dressed up. It is excruciating, it is brutal. It is
inhuman, Lord Henry! Shall I tell you the truth,--though it's dreadful,
wicked. Well, _I hate_ my sister. I loathe her with a deadly loathing.
My fingers itch to--oh, all through the night I think of some means of
disfiguring her. It is the most diabolical cruelty to put any woman into
the position I am in now. I long to fly away, where I shall never, never
see her again. It's that and nothing else that has given me these
fainting fits. I have controlled my loathing too long. One day, if only
fate is kind, I shall fall down and be killed."

She collapsed at the end of this tirade, and burst into a torrent of
tears. There was no affectation about that flood. It was the expression
of real anguish, of long-pent-up suffering, and Lord Henry knew what
infinite good it would do.

"Come, come, Miss Delarayne!" he exclaimed, still fearing that the
humiliation of the discovery, despite the relief it gave, would prove
too much for her immensely proud nature. "I share your secret now. I am
strong. You will feel my strength with you. You are no longer alone. You
will not have any more of these fainting fits."

She still sobbed, and it was heartrending to Lord Henry to watch her.
Unmoved as he was, as a rule, by women's tears, he felt that these,
coming as they did from such a proud spirit, were almost like blood
issuing from a wound.

"And now what will you think of me?" she said at last, lifting her head,
and drying her eyes. "Now that you have heard how unwomanly I am, how
wicked, how criminally wicked! Because, I suppose, morally speaking, to
lie awake and scheme out one's sister's disfigurement is as bad as to
accomplish it."

He smiled. "You don't imagine, do you," he said, "that I am so
thoroughly modern and romantic as to turn away from an eagle when I find
it has not only angel's wings but also claws?"

She laughed. "How did you manage to know so much about me?" she
demanded. "Ordinary men know and understand nothing. They would be
shocked and horrified, if I spoke to them about my sister as I have
spoken to you. How do you know these things?"

"There is much less difference between human beings than one thinks," he
replied. "To know one decent man and one decent woman well, is to be
intimately acquainted with the rest of the decent world, I can assure
you."

"How I dreaded that anybody should know!" she exclaimed, "and yet how
simple it all seems to me now that you should know!"

"And now why don't you go and lie down for a bit," he said.

She rose, and without looking back at him, walked towards the house. Her
gait was lighter, more assured, more self-confident. It was the gait of
one who had ceased to run the gauntlet.




CHAPTER XIV


It wanted an hour and a half to lunch time. Mrs. Delarayne appeared to
have left "The Fastness," and Lord Henry was alone in the garden,
meditating and maturing his plans.

A strange and pleasant titillation of all his nerves, somewhat similar
to that which in the morning convinces a man that he has had a
refreshing and healing sleep, seemed to hint to him that here he was not
the usual neuropathic therapeutist of Ashbury fame, not a mere
specialist spectator, but an acting figure, a participator in this
family affair. Could it be his old and deep-rooted admiration for Mrs.
Delarayne that made him feel this hearty concern about a patient's
condition?

He yawned lazily and stretched himself in the fierce August sunlight.
Cleopatra's empty chair brought back to him her queenly presence, her
passionate confession, and the thought of what it must have cost her. He
felt a primitive and violent impulse to perform miracles for the girl
whose health and happiness, out of blind friendship for her mother, he
had undertaken to protect. He even felt prepared to go to greater
lengths in rescuing her self-esteem than he would ever have dared to go
with other people. For, to become normal again, he knew that her
self-esteem must be revived.

Suddenly, in the midst of his meditations, the sound of somebody
approaching from the direction of the house made him turn his head. It
was Mrs. Delarayne, and, some distance behind her, the whole of "The
Fastness" and Brineweald Park party.

He rose with alacrity and, seizing her by the arm, led her across the
lawn to the far end of the garden.

"Quick," he said, "before the others join us."

She followed, looking up at him with the deepest interest.

"Do you want Leonetta to marry Malster?" he demanded.

"Oh no, most certainly not!" cried the widow with angry emphasis.
"Anything but that. I have taken the most profound dislike to him. That
must be avoided at all costs. The child doesn't know her own mind.
Besides, he doesn't deserve her, and Cleopatra's feelings have surely
been outraged enough. No, most emphatically not. She would only learn to
despise him in a couple of months. In fact, I believe Sir Joseph is
dismissing him from Bullion's."

"I thought you would take that view," he said. "You are not forgetting,
I suppose, that they are very much in love with each other."

"In love!" she exclaimed. "Why, Leonetta would fall in love with a
stuffed owl at present, provided it could dance attendance on her."

He grunted. "Now one thing more. Do you agree with me that, beautiful,
fascinating, and bewitching as Leonetta undoubtedly is, she would be all
the better for realising for once that she cannot have everything her
own way?"

"She's an over-confident little hussy," ejaculated Mrs. Delarayne. "I've
tried to make her feel that myself, but parents are not much good at
that sort of thing. Children think we do it out of spite, you know.
That's what I used to think of my own mother."

"It would make her deeper, more reflective, more desirable."

"Certainly," agreed the widow.

"Now let us go back," said the young man, and they returned to the
others who had settled themselves round the marquee.

"Ah, here's Lord Henry!" Vanessa cried. "We'll ask him what he thinks!"

Leonetta was silent, because the difference of opinion concerned Denis,
and she could not take sides against him. So she contented herself with
observing Lord Henry in that grave, interested manner, which is always a
sign that something deeper than consciousness is taking stock of an
object.

The moment Lord Henry had settled himself in a chair, Stephen Fearwell,
who was at the stage of distant and inarticulate adoration towards him,
dropped on the grass in front of him, at Agatha's feet, and contemplated
him with grave interest.

Stimulated pleasantly as he had been by his interview with Cleopatra,
Lord Henry was still enough of a youth and a man to feel equally moved
by the subtle influence of the beautiful girls and the silent young men
about him. This was just the situation in which experience had always
taught him he could shine to the best advantage, and in which his
formidable weapons could be wielded with the finest effect.

"We are discussing poetry, Lord Henry," said Guy Tyrrell.

"Yes," said Stephen a little shyly, "those two fellows Guy and Denis
have had a fit of indigestion I should think; they've been talking about
what they call Victorian verse the whole morning. Look, Denis has got
his Browning with him still. You don't like poetry, do you?" Stephen
blushed a little. It was his first long and direct appeal to the man he
had been secretly admiring ever since the previous evening.

"But I do very much indeed!" Lord Henry protested.

Miss Mallowcoid, Leonetta, Denis, and Guy laughed triumphantly at this,
and Vanessa, Stephen, Agatha, and Sir Joseph stirred awkwardly.

"We're just four against four,--isn't it funny?" cried Vanessa, jerking
Sir Joseph's arm in which hers was locked. "Of course the Tribes are on
our side too, but they stayed at Stonechurch shopping."

"So I'm to give the casting vote, am I?" Lord Henry enquired.

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Vanessa, clapping her hands eagerly, "and you'll
give it to us, won't you, Lord Henry! Please!"

Leonetta regarded her schoolmate with grave disapproval, and as she
glanced down at her hands, raised her eyebrows in grieved surprise.

"Well," said Denis, "you see, Lord Henry, I've been telling these people
about the curious decline in poetry reading, and in the appreciation of
poetry, which is noticeable nowadays."

"I confess I never read it," Sir Joseph averred. "I can never make out
what the fellow's driving at, turning everything upside down and inside
out!"

Vanessa cried "Hear, hear!" and the baronet laughed uproariously.

"'Ow can people read the stuff?" he pursued.

"I can't read it," said Stephen, "because it entirely fails to interest
me."

"I can't read it," Agatha declared, "because it all seems to me mere
beautiful words."

"Chiefly archaic!" added Stephen.

"I never read it," Vanessa observed, "because you have to wade through
such quantities of stuff before you can find anything worth
remembering."

Miss Mallowcoid, Leonetta, Guy, and Denis laughed.

"I tell them there's something lacking in them," snapped Miss
Mallowcoid, looking as unlike a poetical muse as it was possible to be.

Lord Henry turned to Denis. "You hear what they have said?" he enquired.

"Yes, they've been repeating that the whole morning," Denis rejoined.

"Their voices are at least those of sincerity," said Lord Henry.
"Neither can you say they are exceptionally ill-favoured human beings.
Without wishing to cast any aspersions on you, Miss Mallowcoid,
Leonetta, and Guy, I think an impartial judge might be excused if he
regarded your opponents as at least as intelligent as yourselves."

"Unquestionably," Denis admitted.

"Of course!" cried Guy.

Miss Mallowcoid and Leonetta, however, who were not at all persuaded
that they could excuse such a judge, looked stonily unconvinced.

"Well, then," said Lord Henry, "that shows we must seek the cause of
this modern indifference to poetry elsewhere than in the inferiority of
those who refuse to read it."

"Good!" cried the baronet, and Agatha, Vanessa, and Stephen cheered.

"The question is," Lord Henry continued, "why is poetry not read
to-day?"

"What is poetry, to begin with?" Vanessa demanded.

Everybody agreed that this was obviously the first thing to decide, and
various definitions were given, none of which proved satisfactory. Denis
Malster's definition which was: "Fine thoughts expressed in rhythmic
order, and sometimes rhymed," was rejected by Lord Henry.

"You must get out of your mind altogether, the idea that poetry is all
exalted vapourings, and high-browed sublime blue steam!" he said. "Its
most important characteristic is that it adopts a mnemonic form,--that
is to say, the form you would instinctively cast words into if you
wished to remember them."

This was generally agreed to.

"But what is it that can justly claim the right of a mnemonic form?"
Lord Henry exclaimed. "Clearly only those things that are worth
remembering,--important, vital things!"

Vanessa who was the only person present whose nimble mind foresaw Lord
Henry's conclusion, cheered at this point.

"Very well, then," he continued. "A man who casts his thought or his
emotion into a poetical or mnemonic form, implies that he is dealing
with thoughts or emotions that are important or vital enough to be
remembered. If they fall short of this standard, he is dressing asses in
lions' skins!"

Stephen and Vanessa looked at each other and smiled approvingly.

"The disappointment felt is then all the greater," Lord Henry added,
"seeing that the form leads us to anticipate important things and we do
not get them. In fact," he said, withdrawing a note-book from his breast
pocket, "I made a note the other day of the poet's duty. It is to
prepare for mankind memorisable formulas in universal terms of important
thoughts or emotions."

"But that's almost what I said," Denis protested.

"Yes, almost," Lord Henry replied, with just that restraint in scorn
which makes scorn most scathing.

"The consequence is," Lord Henry concluded, "that according to this view
of poetry, which I believe is the right view, and the view unconsciously
taken by the masses, more than three quarters of Victorian Verse is
simply so much superior drivel."

The baronet's party clapped their hands.

"The works of your Wordsworths, your Tennysons, your Brownings, your
Matthew Arnolds," cried Lord Henry above the noise, "might be distilled
down to one quarter of their bulk and nothing would be lost."

Sir Joseph laughed. "Now I know, now I know!" he ejaculated.

"And as for your very modern poets, they are even worse than the
Victorians. Masefield, for instance, is jejuneness enthroned. How can
you expect the bulk of sane mankind to read poetry, when they repeatedly
encounter this vacuity, this unimportance of thought and emotion,
presented with all the pomp and circumstance of a memorisable form?"

"Bravo, Lord Henry!" Stephen cried.

"But have you read Wordsworth's _Ode on Immortality_?" objected Miss
Mallowcoid, with mantling cheeks and indignant glare. She belonged to
the class of persons who always fancy they have thought of an objection
to a generalisation which the man who made it must have overlooked.

"Yes, of course," replied Lord Henry. "It is a preposterously false and
therefore dangerous thought; but I admit it is magnificently expressed.
A much more sensible and profound view of childhood is given by Browning
at the end of _A Soul's Tragedy_; but unfortunately it is expressed in
Browning's usual turbid and muddled way, without Wordsworth's art."

Denis Malster and Guy Tyrrell were shrewd enough to see that Lord Henry
knew his subject, and had at least endeavoured to understand what poets
should aspire to; Denis, however, felt that at all costs he must enter
the lists against the young nobleman. He knew the women would be quick
to account for his silence in a manner not too complimentary either to
his courage or his ability, and he felt that his very prestige demanded
at least a demonstration of some kind on his part. Leonetta, too, was
beginning to look at him with a suggestion of enquiry in her eyes, and
then ultimately Agatha made it impossible for him to desist any longer.

"Come on now," she said, "you two champions of Victorian verse,--aren't
you going to defend it?"

"Lord Henry has admitted all we claim," he observed lamely. "No one
would dream of saying that all Wordsworth or all Tennyson or all
Browning was worth reading."

"Yes, but I claim that fully three quarters of it was not worth
printing," said Lord Henry.

"I think that's a gross exaggeration," Miss Mallowcoid averred.

"Still at it?" enquired Mrs. Tribe, who accompanied by her husband now
joined the party. "I agree with Lord Henry whatever he has said."

"Ah, you know a thing or two!" cried Vanessa.

At a signal from Sir Joseph, Lord Henry now rose, and the two strolled
off together in the direction of the house.

"Have you seen Cleopatra?" the baronet asked as soon as they were out of
earshot.

Lord Henry told him briefly what had happened.

"How strange!" Sir Joseph exclaimed.

"It is all the result of our detestable English system of leaving it to
our daughters to dress their own shop window, so to speak," Lord Henry
remarked, "so that at a given moment they each enter business on their
own account, make the best possible show, and of course become the most
bitter rivals. It is as cruel as it is stupid. It is the old Manchester
School, the commercial idea of unrestricted competition, invading even
the family."

Sir Joseph who imagined that the young nobleman was trying to be
humorous, laughed at this.

"Ye-es, yes, I see!" he exclaimed chuckling.

Lord Henry groaned.

"But it is a most impossible situation," he said sternly. "Don't you
understand? In the case of women of deep passions, like these beautiful
Delarayne girls, it is a harrowing drama."

Sir Joseph looked up. Lord Henry's words had sobered him.

"You don't say so!" he muttered.

"I do, most emphatically," the young man continued "All our plan of life
in England, you see, is founded on the assumption that only people of
mediocre and diluted passion will hold the stage. We allow our girls to
go about freely with young men, for instance. Why?"

"Because we can trust the young men," suggested Sir Joseph.

"Not a bit of it!--because both men and girls are usually so very much
below par temperamentally that they can exercise what is called
'self-control,'--that is to say their passions are relied upon always to
be weaker than their 'self-control'."

Sir Joseph was by now utterly bewildered.

"We allow our daughters to exercise the most heartless rivalry one
against the other in the matrimonial field--why?"

Sir Joseph, who imagined that the young nobleman was growing impatient
with him, did not venture to reply.

"Because," continued Lord Henry, "we know perfectly well that they are
too tame, too mild, too listless about life, ever to become homicidal in
their hatred of one another. The moment two deep, eager and adorable
girls, like these daughters of Mrs. Delarayne, walk on to our English
boards, our whole fabric, our whole scenery, and stage machinery, is
shown to be wrong to the last screw. God! How different this country
must have been when Shakespeare was able to say that thing about one
touch of nature! Now one touch of nature in England sets the whole world
by the ears!"

"Is Cleopatra very bad then?" Sir Joseph enquired anxiously.

"So bad that she would have been suicidal if steps had not been taken
immediately. You see it isn't everybody who is so lukewarm, so anæmic,
as to make a cheerful old maid. Cheery old maids are the condemnation of
modern English womanhood Their frequency in England shows the
shallowness of the average modern woman's passion. Among all
warm-blooded peoples old maids are known to be bitter, resentful,
untractable and misanthropic."

"Are they really?" exclaimed Sir Joseph. "I didn't know that."

Mrs. Delarayne came towards them.

"Lord Henry," she cried, "Cleopatra is coming to lunch. You have
already done wonders with her. At least she wants to be well now. That's
a great triumph."

The remainder of the party now came up the garden towards the house.

"Lord Henry!" Leonetta cried, skipping up to his side, bearing a kitten.
"Do you like cats? Look at this little angel!"

Lord Henry, without looking at her, raised a hand deprecatingly.

"We are not out of the wood yet," he murmured in an aside to Mrs.
Delarayne.

"Oh, she's scratching,--do look at her, Lord Henry!" Leonetta exclaimed,
a little over anxiously this time, as she was not used to having her
self-advertising manoeuvres disregarded in this manner.

"Yes," said Lord Henry with cold courtesy, glancing at the kitten only
for a moment, and then quickly resuming his conversation with his
hostess.

Leonetta, swallowing something in her throat, skipped with a somewhat
forced affectation of childish gaiety in the direction of the house.
Lord Henry, Denis, and Vanessa, however, were the only three of the
party who correctly interpreted her action, though they appeared to be
engaged with other matters.

       *       *       *       *       *

After dinner that day, when the cool of a midsummer evening had fallen
on Brineweald Park, and Cleopatra had been despatched to her bed by her
new spiritual adviser, Mrs. Delarayne, Sir Joseph, Miss Mallowcoid, and
Gerald Tribe sat down to Bridge on the terrace, Lord Henry invited
Agatha to show him over the grounds, and Mrs. Tribe and Stephen went to
the billiard room.

A moment before Lord Henry had descended the steps with his companion,
he had seen Vanessa and Guy Tyrrell depart mysteriously in the direction
of the woods, and Denis and Leonetta vanish just as mysteriously towards
Headlinge.

For the purpose he had in view, he would have preferred Vanessa for his
companion, more especially as he had noticed that she went reluctantly
with Tyrrell, but he had missed securing her by a minute, thanks to Mrs.
Delarayne's garrulousness.

He stood at the foot of the steps. It mattered not to him whither
Vanessa and her companion were bound, and observing the direction Denis
and Leonetta were taking, he walked slowly along the path to Headstone,
which was exposed for the greater length of its course, and promised to
keep him constantly in their view.

"This way, Lord Henry," said Agatha, starting in the direction of
Headlinge.

"No, if you don't mind," he said, "I prefer this path. I like the sweep
of the hill to the right. These vast stretches of grass at this hour
always make me feel that I am walking on the edge of a carpet, on which
the elves and the fairies are having their revels."

The girl acquiesced. The two figures to the left, on the road to
Headlinge, buried themselves in a wooded grove, and the girl glanced a
little apprehensively in their direction, as she caught the last glimpse
of them.

"Denis and Leonetta are on the road to Headlinge," she said simply.

"Oh, are they?" replied Lord Henry. "Can you see them then?"

"No," she answered. "They are somewhere behind those trees."

       *       *       *       *       *

Two proposals of marriage were made that evening in Brineweald Park. One
was flatly declined; the result of the other was doubtful. The love-sick
swains were Denis Malster and Guy Tyrrell, and their respective
companions we know.

Guy Tyrrell, who was of the breed who scarcely ever receive a
spontaneous kindly look from women, without offering something very
substantial in exchange, was feeling that romantic passion for the
voluptuous Jewess, which the sun and the plentiful food at Brineweald,
had no doubt done an immense deal to fan to a flame in his breast. He
had recognised very early that with Malster about, he stood no chance
with Leonetta, and he found that had it not been for Leonetta's
occupying the central place, he would have stood just as bad a chance
with Vanessa. For two days now, moreover, he had been observing Vanessa
lavishing her attentions on Sir Joseph, and utterly harmless though the
old baronet was, Guy had been conscious of certain intolerable pangs
when he had seen the girl's shapely little brown hands in the City
magnate's, and her strong nicely rounded forearm enlocked in his
master's.

Tremulously, therefore, but with studious persistency, he had that
evening repeatedly whispered the request to her that she should walk out
to the woods with him, and she, casting a longing glance first at Lord
Henry, then at Denis Malster, had reluctantly acquiesced. Her curiosity
was possibly awakened too; at all events she went, when she had no
pressing need to go, and incidentally received the entertainment she
deserved.

He was agitated, as all "clean-minded" young men are, whose amorous
passions have for once got the better of their qualms, and he breathed
very heavily,--rather like a draft-ox at the turn of the plough. He was
gauche, timid, thoroughly unskilled in the art of wooing, not even up to
the wiles of the most guileless male animal or bird; and Vanessa felt
only a sensation of extreme discomfiture as he blurted out his longings
to her.

"No, really not!" she exclaimed. "I'm sorry, but I had no idea you felt
like that about me."

He caught her arms. His hand was very hot, and she felt it through the
gauze of her sleeve.

She turned back quickly. "Come on," she said, "let's get back to the
house. They'll wonder what on earth we're doing."

He dropped his hand to hers, and pulled on it slightly.

"Listen," he pleaded. "Stop a minute and listen."

She screwed her hand deftly out of his, and drew aside.

"Oh, please leave me alone, Guy!" she cried. "It's no good. I couldn't
dream of it. I'm never going to marry."

Still he persisted incoherently, unattractively, and with the increasing
daring of swelling desire.

"No, I tell you," she ejaculated, laughing a little nervously. "Can't
you take 'no' for an answer? You are not going to annoy me just because
we happen to be alone, are you?"

He dropped his hands to his side, and was silent.

"Now, don't let's say any more about it," said Vanessa, feeling very
much relieved. She had the sound instinct that informed her that this
man's "clean-mindedness" was revolting, and breathed fast and
irregularly at the thought of the danger she imagined she had been in.
If he had kissed her with those uneloquent and untrained lips of his,
impure in their purity, she would never have forgiven herself.

"Look at the moon," she said, as she strode rapidly back to the house.
"It is beginning to wane. I wonder if the weather will change with it."

And so they reached the terrace,--she feeling that she wanted a wash; he
feeling only that he had bungled it, because she was too worldly, too
sophisticated to be natural.

Meanwhile, however, in another part of the grounds, a very much more
subtle, irresistible, and skilful proposal was being pronounced. True,
it was being made by a man who desired at all costs, and in good time,
to secure his achieved success from threatened assault, and who was
therefore a little desperate; but it was also the performance of a
creature who knew his subject, who understood its difficulties, and who
was not hindered by any of those scruples of ignorance and purity which
temper ardour and paralyse daring.

For Malster was in the condition in which a man's desire may truly be
said to have become a physical ache. A feeling of sick longing held his
heart and entrails as in a vise, a sort of cramp of violent tension
stiffened all his tissues. On Leonetta his eyes were fastened as if by
some powerful magnet. The rest of the world, as also its inhabitants,
was obliterated; they seemed nothing more than shadows passing and
re-passing,--shadows which, if need be, could be pushed aside, offended,
outraged. For what, after all, are shadows?

People are mistaken if they imagine that it requires any effort to
sacrifice position, power, friends, parents,--aye, even home,
nationality, and honour,--when a man is in this condition. For these
things are as nothing, beside the all-devouring anguish of so great a
desire. They are not sacrificed in such circumstances; they simply do
not enter within his purview.

If Leonetta had acted wilfully, deliberately, and with her object
clearly conceived before she began, she could not have achieved any
greater success; for Malster was her abject slave. Jealous of every look
or word she vouchsafed to another, hating even the kitten that her rosy
well-made fingers clasped, literally ill away from her presence, and
thrilled almost painfully by the sound of her voice when she returned,
the whole of Brineweald had become for him but a fantastic and hardly
material background, to a scene in which his emotions beat out their
gigantic throbs like Titans wrestling for freedom. He was not even in a
fit state to use an ordinary foot-rule with accuracy.

To speak to such a man of morals, of ethical duty, of certain
obligations to an elder sister, of responsibility to host or hostess, or
to society, would have been little better than to try to teach table
etiquette to a boa-constrictor. There was only one thing that could
force him to become sober for one instant and to reflect, and that was
the menace of successful rivalry. But even then his sober mood would
last only as long as he was maturing panic schemes to overcome the
difficulty.

Such a mood of sober reflection had, however, possessed him ever since
the advent of Lord Henry, and although he had not the slightest reason
either to suspect or to surmise that the young nobleman wished to
defeat him in any field, such was the magnitude of his desire for
Leonetta and the jealousy it provoked, that every minute that Lord Henry
spoke, every minute that his voice held the flapper's ears in attentive
subjection, were to him so many hours of agonising dread.

A glance at Leonetta would convince him that she was listening; further
observation would reveal the fact that she was also interested; and
finally he would recognise that her eyes were upon the young nobleman,
even when he was silent.

Denis Malster had perceived with female quickness the infernal charms of
Lord Henry's personality; he had measured almost exactly, despite the
natural tendency to exaggeration into which his jealousy led him, the
precise effect of Lord Henry's persuasive and emphatic tongue upon the
female ear. He had seen its effect on Mrs. Delarayne, on Vanessa, on
Agatha, on Mrs. Tribe. Was it likely that Leonetta would long remain
insensible to the difference between himself and the new arrival?

Already he had been obliged to abandon those daily contests on the
subject of the Inner Light with the wretched Gerald Tribe, because Lord
Henry promised to be too much for him. And yet they had been so
valuable,--such a splendid opportunity for exhibiting his proudest
achievements!

Things had come to such a pass that he literally did not dare to
organise again those pleasant little assemblies, in which he could
discuss anything and challenge all comers, with the perfect certainty of
shining as he vanquished them. It is true that he could have continued
them by carefully omitting Lord Henry from their midst; but he was by no
means a fool, and did not underestimate the intelligence of those about
him. Thus he realised the damaging effect it would be sure to have on
his prestige, if he persistently manoeuvred to leave Lord Henry out;
and he knew well enough how quickly women notice such things,--they who
are such past-masters at precisely this kind of manoeuvring.

Had Lord Henry not come upon the scene, Denis would have been content,
as was his wont, to prolong the delicious agony of his love
indefinitely, secure in the thought that at any moment he would be able
by a word to secure Leonetta for ever to him.

Now, however, there could no longer be any question of prolonging the
situation indefinitely. The only problem that occupied his mind was,
when and how to say that word to Leonetta which was to bind her for ever
to him, before she receded one hundredth of an inch from the summit of
ecstasy to which he imagined she too must have climbed in the last few
days.

Thus he had been moved by a thought similar to Guy Tyrrell's; but there,
as we shall see, the likeness ceased.

A girl of seventeen or eighteen is nearly always in danger when a man
of thirty pays attention to her,--in danger, that is to say, of
acquiescing too soon, too early in life, too unreflectedly and
ignorantly.

Leonetta had been intoxicated by Denis Malster's worship. It would
perhaps be unscientific here, and therefore untrue, to overlook the fact
that the conquest of her sister's beau, had been in itself a triumphant
achievement, apart from any particular claims he might have to
attraction. But is not human nature such that in any case it is always
partially subdued by devotion? Does not even the love of an animal make
an irresistible appeal to the most callous? Is not the common preference
for dogs before cats in England, largely ascribable to the fact that the
flattery residing in devotion and affection makes such an impelling
appeal to all vain people, that the superior animal is discarded for the
inferior? The dog is grossly and offensively obscene; he is dirty, he
pollutes our streets; he is a coward, and has the pusillanimous spirit
of a rather faint-hearted lackey. The cat, on the other hand, is decent,
clean, consistently sanitary, brave, and possessed of the great-hearted
self-reliant spirit of a born warrior. The cat, however, does not fawn,
it does not flatter, it shows no devotion, it knows none of the
sycophantic wiles of the dog; but since modern mankind in England is
animated chiefly by vanity, the dog with all his objectionable
characteristics and habits is preferred.

Now women, though by no means alone in the possession of vanity, are
perhaps a little more subject than men to its sway, and it is precisely
their vanity which is their greatest danger. Like the modern Englishman,
they all too frequently overlook the noble for the inferior animal,
because the latter is a better worshipper, and, particularly when they
are still in their teens, worship from the male, which is something so
novel, so exquisitely strange, and so stimulating to their self-esteem,
constitutes one of the greatest pitfalls they can encounter.

Why should it necessarily be a pitfall? Precisely because it may induce
them to decide too soon in favour of an inferior man.

Leonetta was therefore in danger, and Lord Henry knew it.

Everything he had said and done in her presence since he had come to
Brineweald, had been deliberate, premeditated, purposeful,--all with the
intention of averting the danger she was in, or at least with the view
of giving her time to collect her senses, and to obtain some breathing
space before coming to the fatal decision.

Denis Malster was sufficiently sensitive to be vaguely aware of the
element of an organised attack in the behaviour of the young nobleman,
upright and above-board as it had been; hence his hurrying of his
inestimable treasure,--the one creature that could give him
peace,--along the road to Headlinge that evening; hence too the tactics
he had resolved to adopt. For he felt instinctively, not only that Lord
Henry was moving against him, but also that Mrs. Delarayne was fast
becoming an open enemy.

They entwined fingers discreetly as they walked along, and the moment
they had plunged into the grove, he would raise her hand from time to
time, as he spoke, and kiss it fervently. It was cool and firm, a
beautiful symbol of her beautiful body, and he was racked with a
wildness of longing by the side of which the language of Cupid sounds
like the pipe of a bird in a hurricane.

It seemed to his resourceful mind that possibly the best way of securing
this girl's attachment to him, would be by a vivid appeal to her senses.
His prestige was at stake, and in this dilemma men have been known to go
to even greater lengths than when driven by sensuality alone. He did not
underestimate the vigour of her passions, and knew that in this
direction there was hope of uncontested victory.

"How heavenly it is," he said, "to have you quite alone for once, with
nothing but wild nature looking on! How I loathe that crowd when it
keeps us apart even for a moment."

He halted for a second, and they kissed.

"Oh, Leo, my darling," he continued, as they again walked slowly towards
Headlinge, "you don't know how I suffer to see you in your present
environment. You who are so natural, so essentially a creature of the
wilds, surrounded by things that are so artificial, so overheated, so
stagey. I shudder every time I hear you call the Warrior 'Peachy.' It
shows how grossly your true nature has been distorted to serve her
artificial ends. The beautiful word 'mother' would give the lie to the
deception she tries to practice daily upon all of us, with every means
that her art can supply. Excuse my speaking like this of your mother;
but I imagine you a wild creature of the woods, with flowing hair; your
mother a natural parent, who resigns herself cheerfully and becomingly
to age, whose face is coloured uniquely by the sun, despising as much as
you yourself surely do those petty tricks of make-believe,--those
cosmetics and hair-dyes, that don't even deceive the coarsest chauffeur
on the road,--and realising the charm of her years as much as she
admires the beauty of yours. It makes me boil to see you corrupted by
this atmosphere!"

He was careful at the end of each little speech to stop and fondle her,
and to press her cool firm fingers to his lips in an ecstasy of
devotion.

"You were not made to rear a town-street full of dandies, of Lord Henrys
and his like, but to be the proud dam of a stalwart race of yeomen. It
is in just such a wild setting as this that you, the Diana of a truly
British country-side, could shine to greatest perfection. You are a
child of freedom, a bird whose gorgeous wings they are trying to clip."

They sat down on a bank. The brilliance of the moon illuminated the
country beyond. The chimneys of Sir Joseph's house were visible far away
to the right.

He had another passionate outburst, convincing because he was genuinely
at his wit's end with longing. He smothered her with his embraces,
rained kisses on a face that was seductively screened by roughly
dishevelled hair, and which smiled back at him with a look of
intoxication almost equal to his own. And then at last, concluding
instinctively that the moment had come for complete forgetfulness, he
even thought he might proceed to discount bills of intimacy before they
had become due,--a practice not uncommon in England,--and he held her in
a way that was at least novel to the eager flapper.

Half fearfully he waited for the effect of his daring action. She said
nothing, but simply showed her magnificent white teeth in a smile that
betokened the most complete satisfaction.

"Leo, fly away with me, will you? Don't let us wait to ask. Let us go. I
have savings; besides, I am no fool. It would mean leaving Bullion's of
course, but why need we mind that? You can trust me, can't you? Let us
leave this hated place, with its people who do not understand us. We
might go to Canada, where wild nature has taught people to be more
natural than they are here. Oh, say you will come with me. It would be
heavenly!"

"Do you mean at once?" she exclaimed, laughing now at the transport of
devotion which had just made him kiss her feet.

"Well, I suppose we could not go actually now, but at the latest
to-morrow at this time. We might steal away while everybody's dressing
for the dance."

She was lying back on the bank, her eyes were keen with thought, her
mouth now closed in solemn reflection. Suddenly he recognised not fifty
yards away, fully revealed in the moonlight, the figures of Lord Henry
and Vanessa, walking slowly along the lower path which led to Headstone.
As he had seen Lord Henry with Agatha on the same path about an hour
before he could not at first believe his eyes. But the form of the
stylish young Jewess was unmistakable. Lord Henry must have gone back to
exchange companions. Where was Guy then? However, Leonetta had not seen
them, so it did not matter.

"Quick, tell me--yes or no! because I must make all the arrangements for
our flight immediately."

She made a movement to rise.

"No, don't get up," he said quickly. "You've no idea how beautiful you
look there."

"But I must," cried the girl, "one of my slides is sticking into my
head! If you _will_ handle me so roughly," she added, smiling with the
deepest contentment.

"Let me find it for you, don't get up!" he pleaded.

But what Delaraynes want, God wants; and in an instant his obstructing
hand was brushed aside and she was sitting up.

He looked into her eyes, hoping to fasten them on himself, and keep them
off the hateful spectacle not fifty yards away. For a few seconds he was
successful. He then proceeded to kiss her again in order to blot out the
vision for yet a while longer.

"Denis!" she exclaimed, "for mercy's sake let me put my slide right, and
then you can do what you like."

He desisted, shaken with overstimulated craving, and then all at once,
his heart sank; for her keen eyes had seen what he hoped would have
disappeared before she could notice it.

"Why, look!" she cried, "there's that little cat Vanessa walking alone
with Lord Henry!"

"Yes," he rejoined, with as much indifference as he could summon.

"What on earth can they be doing?" she demanded craning her neck to see
as much of them as possible.

"Oh, nothing--they're only walking. Slow enough in all conscience, I
should think."

Leonetta was silent, her eyes fixed upon the couple slowly proceeding
along the lower path. What could Lord Henry possibly see in that
Jezebel! She recalled his hauteur and studious coldness towards herself,
his air of deep understanding and mastery, his magic look of wizardly
youth, his eloquence, his immense self-possession, his mysterious
connection with Cleopatra's indisposition and recovery. What could it be
that made him so indifferent to her?

She rose.

"Oh, don't move!" said Denis irritably.

"I must see where that little cat is taking him," she muttered. And
creeping to the nearest tree, she peered round it.

Meanwhile Denis ground his teeth, and flung himself back on the bank in
a spasm of impotent loathing of Lord Henry. "They're holding hands!"
whispered the girl in angry surprise.

Denis craned his neck. "Nonsense!" he exclaimed, "he's only explaining
something to her. I suppose palmistry is another of his tricks or hers.
Can't you see?" He felt the spell had been broken, and was savage. "Come
and sit down, Leo!" he hissed.

"Half a mo!" she cried; and then after a while she added: "Oh, I say, do
look! He's got his arm round her waist!"

"She's only showing him the latest two-step!" said Denis. "Can't you
see--there--see? They're only practising a step.

"So they are!" gasped the girl. She recognised her own tactics in this
dancing tuition of Vanessa's, and was obviously annoyed. "Copy-cat!" she
murmured under her breath.

"Come on!" she cried at last, "let's go home."

"Oh, not yet!" he implored her.

"Yes, I want to," she replied with impatience.

"Oh, it's been such a gorgeous time!"

"Who would have thought!" she exclaimed, "that that young devil----!"

"Leo!" Denis remonstrated.

"Well, that's all she is!" snapped Leonetta, thrusting her arm roughly
into his, and jerking him forward towards the house.

Denis was beside himself with fury. "Well, what about to-morrow?" he
enquired lamely, feeling all the while that the effect had been missed.

"Oh, I'll tell you to-morrow," she replied. "Quick! I want to get home
and to bed before they do. I wouldn't let her know that I'd seen her
walking with Lord Henry for worlds!"




CHAPTER XV


Lord Henry had made many friends at Brineweald, but neither was Denis
Malster quite alone. Miss Mallowcoid had not taken kindly to the
patronage Lord Henry had thought fit to extend to Mr. and Mrs. Tribe,
and the latter's assurance and good spirits in Lord Henry's presence had
succeeded in making the spinster take a very strong dislike to him.
Before he had come on the scene Mrs. Tribe had been as becomingly meek
and humble as she always was in London, but for some reason, which the
spinster could hardly explain, Lord Henry's friendship had quite
transformed her.

Miss Mallowcoid knew nothing of the deep gratitude that the unfortunate
little woman felt towards him for having put a stop to the nightly
baitings her husband had theretofore received from Denis Malster, nor
did she know of the intense devotion that the Incandescent Gerald felt
for the new guest. She could only recognise one fact,--a fact that
considerably disturbed her feeling of well-being,--and that was, that
since Lord Henry's arrival, Mrs. Tribe had behaved like an ordinary,
cheerful, and independent human being.

With her, against Lord Henry, Miss Mallowcoid knew that she could always
count upon Sir Joseph, because his jealousy of the young nobleman made
him scarcely rational. So that if we reckon Denis Malster as well, in
the Mallowcoid camp, it is plain that there was no inconsiderable
nucleus of hostility against Lord Henry at this time at Brineweald Park.

Alone with her sister and Sir Joseph, Miss Mallowcoid had already seized
more than one opportunity of disparaging the nerve specialist of
Ashbury, and on the evening of the two proposals just described, when
the Incandescent Gerald had retired to bed, the three had an animated
discussion about Leonetta, Denis, and Lord Henry.

Mrs. Delarayne had given her reasons for being irreconcilably opposed to
Leonetta's match with Denis, and had declared that Lord Henry was in
entire agreement with her. She had laid the blame of Cleopatra's sudden
breakdown on Denis's shoulders, and had confessed to feeling a very
strong instinctive dislike for him. She even reminded Sir Joseph of his
promise to her earlier in the day, that he would dismiss Denis from his
service.

"Oh, I think that would be most cruelly unfair!" exclaimed Miss
Mallowcoid, when she heard the announcement.

"Why unfair?" snapped Mrs. Delarayne.

Miss Mallowcoid shook her head. "Well, Edith," she began, "of course you
know best what to do with your girls, but personally I think it very
honest and noble of Denis to have shown that he has changed his mind, if
he really has done so. Besides, if you think he is prepared to marry
Leonetta, why should you spoil her chances? Not that I think she
deserves him, of course, but that's neither here nor there."

"No, it certainly isn't," interjected Mrs. Delarayne.

"But, after all, what has it got to do with Lord Henry, I should like to
know?" pursued the spinster, trying to catch Sir Joseph's eye. "He is
here to cure Cleo, and not to meddle in all your affairs."

"He is here primarily as my friend," croaked the widow.

"I must say, my dear lady," said Sir Joseph, "I think there is something
in what your sister says. You are always complaining about having two
unmarried daughters on your hands. Denis is a good secretary to me. He
has good prospects. So what does it matter if he does marry Leonetta?"

"Oh, Joseph," cried the harassed lady, "how little you can understand of
the whole affair! And as for you, Bella, it seems to me you've got the
whole thing topsy-turvy as usual."

"Oh, of course!" exclaimed Miss Mallowcoid, tetchily. "But I know one
thing. Denis is an honourable and well set-up young man, and an
excellent match, and it is madness to oppose him as you are doing. Lord
Henry won't find a husband for Leonetta, I suppose!"

"Bella, dear, if only you would for once speak of things you thoroughly
grasp and understand, it would be so refreshing!" snapped Mrs. Delarayne
angrily.

"I certainly think," said Sir Joseph, "that before we do anything we
might ask Denis his intentions towards Leonetta."

"But I don't like Denis, I tell you!" declared the widow. "You can see
what his intentions are without asking. Leonetta has driven him
thoroughly mad."

Sir Joseph shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course, Edith, that is simply blind prejudice," Miss Mallowcoid
averred, herself growing every minute more irate. "You don't see it, my
dear, I know, but it is grossly unfair. A most cultivated, charming
young man! Why, the way he spoke about poetry this morning,--nothing
could have been more edifying. As for your Lord Henry,--he doesn't know
what the word poetry means."

"I doubt that very much," said Mrs. Delarayne fidgeting unhappily with
the cards.

"There can surely be no harm, dear lady," said Sir Joseph, "in asking
Denis what his intentions are."

Mrs. Delarayne was still adamant. "I hate the insult to Cleo," she said,
"and I don't like him. But if you both insist."

Sir Joseph repudiated the suggestion that he insisted.

"Neither do I, of course," Miss Mallowcoid exclaimed with an ironic
smile. "A lot of good I should do by insisting."

"Do you propose to speak to him?" Mrs. Delarayne enquired of the
baronet.

"I will if you like."

"I think you might both do it," suggested Miss Mallowcoid. "At all
events, there's no immediate hurry," said Sir Joseph.

At this moment Denis and Leonetta came up the steps and were greeted by
the party at the card-table.

"Oh, my dear, how hot you look!" cried Mrs. Delarayne to her daughter.

"Yes, we've been stepping it out a bit, because I wanted to get home."

Mrs. Delarayne noticed that her child was badly dishevelled, and that
there was an unusually fiery glint in her eyes.

"What have you young people been doing all this time?" Miss Mallowcoid
enquired in her most roguish manner.

"As a matter of fact we tried to reach Headlinge, and failed," said
Denis, looking a trifle pale in spite of his tanned skin.

"I should have thought you could have gone there and back again twice
over in the time," said Mrs. Delarayne, scrutinising her daughter with
care.

"Well, we didn't," said Leonetta decisively.

"Had too much to say to each other on the way," Miss Mallowcoid
interjected with a coy smile.

"Where's Agatha?" Denis demanded.

"She and Stephen have walked home; they were feeling tired."

"And Lord Henry?" Leonetta asked.

"He's gone off with my girl," said Sir Joseph with mock bitterness.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following day broke colder and more overcast than any that the
Brineweald party had had since they left London. The programme had
therefore to be modified accordingly, and picnics and excursions
declared out of the question.

In the morning the beach was visited as usual, and Lord Henry showed
himself to be, among other things, an excellent swimmer. Cleopatra had
joined the beach party though she had not bathed, but while everyone
noticed that she was looking very much better, it was also observed that
she had not her customary spirits. She no longer vied with Leonetta in
leading the entertainment of the party, and was particularly and
conspicuously subdued and laconic whenever Lord Henry addressed her.

At lunch, which was taken at "The Fastness," Lord Henry thoroughly
exasperated Miss Mallowcoid by inviting the Tribes to join him on his
journey to China, and roused considerable interest by describing the
plan of his mission to that country. It was evident that he would
require a party of helpers, and Mrs. Tribe was most eager to be of their
number. The Incandescent Gerald, however, gravely shook his head.

"Of course not,--how can you be so silly, Agnes!" Miss Mallowcoid
exclaimed. "Gerald has his religious duties here."

Lord Henry saw that Mrs. Tribe did not dare to reply herself, so he
replied for her.

"It only remains for me to convince Mr. Tribe, then," he said, "that in
following me to China he would be performing a very lofty religious
duty."

"I'd go like a shot!" cried Stephen.

"So would I!" echoed Guy Tyrrell.

In the afternoon Sir Joseph asked Denis to spend a moment with him over
his correspondence, and seizing the opportunity as the others were
playing tennis, Lord Henry invited Leonetta and her sister to go with
him to Headstone to look at Sir Joseph's prize cattle there.

Lord Henry's invitation to Leonetta constituted the first real attention
he had paid her since he had been down at Brineweald, and she stammered
her acceptance with ill-concealed excitement. Even with Cleo as one of
the party, her curiosity regarding him was too great for her to forego
this opportunity. She therefore begged to be allowed a moment to put on
her hat, and when she returned at the end of five minutes, it was
obvious that she had taken unusual pains with her appearance.

The three turned at a leisurely pace up the road towards Headstone, and
as Miss Mallowcoid saw their hats vanish on the other side of the hedge,
she announced the fact of their departure to her sister.

Mrs. Delarayne was well aware of what was happening, and was not too
happy about it. Lord Henry seemed lost to her.

"Oh, leave me alone, can't you!" she snarled. "Can't you see I'm
reading?" and the offensiveness of her manner seemed so unaccountable to
Miss Mallowcoid, that this lady got up in a state of high perturbation,
and deliberately stalked over to the marquee, where for a while she sat
alone brooding over the indignity she had suffered.

The trio on their way to Headstone were finding it uphill work to
discover some lasting and common subject of interest with which to
entertain each other; many topics were started, but the conversation was
always desultory, and Lord Henry, try how he might, failed to make it
general. He felt as a mariner might feel who was trying to harmonise two
compasses, one of which had an error to the west, and the other an error
to the east. At last, when they were on their way home, having given up
all hope of success, he decided that the only way was to talk himself,
and this he proceeded to do with his customary enthusiasm. The subject
was suggested by Leonetta, who asked how it was that though they had
heard of him so frequently during the last five or six years, neither
Cleopatra nor she herself had ever seen him. This introduced them to
the subject of Mrs. Delarayne, which Lord Henry seized with alacrity.

"You have no idea," he said, "how I admire the perfectly splendid way
you girls deal with your mother."

Leonetta looked up and scrutinised his face. She thought he must be
joking.

"You are so immensely sensible and sympathetic, when it would be so easy
for you to be heartless."

"Heartless--what do you mean?" Cleopatra asked.

"Well, you see, the whole thing is so simple,--Heavens, it is almost too
simple to explain!" He had that fiery way of speaking which gave to
everything he said the magic impress of vital significance.

"You see," he pursued, "your mother is a really great-hearted woman, and
you girls seem to have realised it and tried to live up to her. It is
magnificent of you."

Both girls were deeply interested; but Cleopatra kept her eyes on the
ground.

"She is clear-sighted and honest enough to see the truth about youth and
age, and makes no bones about it. She doesn't pretend that there's any
particular beauty in old age. God!--she's one in a thousand!"

"What truth about youth and age?" Leonetta asked, as she mentally
commented on the singular coincidence that both Denis the night before,
and Lord Henry now, should choose to speak about this particular aspect
of her mother.

"Why, it must have occurred to you," Lord Henry continued, "that youth
makes a universal appeal; it is of interest to everybody. Its peculiar
fascination makes it a possession to which none can be indifferent. Do
you see that? Do you see how youth has the world's eye upon it,--how,
not only in its own, but also in all older generations, it meets with
the smile of welcome, of interest, of ready affection? All the world
over this is so."

"Yes, yes,--I see," cried Leonetta.

"And now look on age! It has an interest indeed, but that interest is
localised. It is limited to a circle, frequently to a domestic circle,
sometimes only to one member in that circle. People say: Who is this
poor old man? Who is this poor old woman? Have they any one who cares
for them? And if it is known they have good relatives, then the interest
ceases, and the rest of the world is only too glad that their
responsibility ends in having made the enquiry. But no one asks: Who is
this poor young man? or who is this poor flapper, has she any one that
cares for her?"

Leonetta laughed.

"You feel," pursued Lord Henry, "that old people must have someone of
their own to love them, because the rest of the world does not do so
spontaneously. The old people and sentimentalists who speak of every age
having its beauty, are humbugs. Now your mother is the very reverse of
one of these humbugs. She knows well enough that old age has only a
local, a limited interest, and rather than abandon the universal
interest that youth can claim, she fights like a Trojan to retain her
youthful beauty. The bravery with which she is now holding old age at
arm's length, and defying it to embrace her is perfectly amazing. It
shows her infinite good taste; it shows how deeply she has understood
the difference between youth and age. It is one of the most thrilling
things I have ever witnessed."

Leonetta laughed ecstatically. "Yes, yes, I see!" she exclaimed. "You
put it in a new light. Bravo, old Peachy!--you make me feel I want to
run home and kiss her." And then she added, as if it were an
afterthought: "Except that she hates being kissed."

Cleopatra was thoughtful. "Yes, I understand all that," she said after a
while; "I have understood that for some time,--at least dimly. But then,
this local interest which you say old age excites, this local or
domestic appeal which it makes,--will not Edith ever feel that?"

"Ah, don't you see, Miss Delarayne," Lord Henry replied, "this local
interest, this domestic interest on which old age depends, has to be
very strong, very intense, very highly concentrated, to make any one as
tasteful as your mother gladly relinquish the other interest."

"Very, very intense," Cleopatra repeated. "Do you mean that in Baby--I
mean Leo--and myself it is not sufficiently intense?"

Leonetta looked solemnly up into Lord Henry's face to catch every word
of his reply, and in doing so even forgot to notice that there were
young men on the road observing her.

"Don't misunderstand me," Lord Henry pleaded. "I do not wish to imply
that you two girls do not love and cherish your mother. In fact, as I
have just been saying, the zeal with which you help her in every way to
achieve the end she wishes to achieve is most highly creditable. But,
have you ever known, have you ever witnessed at close quarters, the
worship of a devoted son for his mother? Have you ever been anywhere
near two people, mother and son, who have been bound by that most unique
and most passionate of affections, which has made the local interest of
old age seem sufficiently vast and full to reconcile the mother to a
happy relinquishment of that other interest,--the interest the world
feels in youth?"

Still Leonetta gazed into Lord Henry's face, and still Cleopatra kept
her eyes thoughtfully on the ground.

"Because, I remind you," Lord Henry concluded, "that this domestic
interest, since it is so circumscribed and restricted, has to be
proportionately more intense than the interest the whole world feels in
youth. And that intensity a son is capable, I think, of giving his
mother."

"Have you ever witnessed that?" Leonetta enquired.

Lord Henry laughed in his irresistible and ironical way. But it was
obvious that genuine mirth was not his mood.

"I happen to be one of those who have actually lived it," he said.

"Is your mother still living?" Cleopatra enquired.

Lord Henry bowed his head. "No," he replied, with that supreme calmness
which only those feel who have discharged more than their appointed duty
to a deceased relative, "she died three years ago."

For some moments the three walked on in silence; then at last Leonetta
spoke.

"That does explain an awful lot about dear old Peachy, doesn't it,
Cleo?" she exclaimed.

"It explains everything," Cleopatra replied serenely.

"Of course," Leonetta added, addressing Lord Henry, "we always knew you
were Peachy's star turn,--you know what I mean! But we hadn't any idea
you knew her so well. How lovely it must be to be understood so well, so
deeply, by even one creature on earth!"

Lord Henry laughed.

"You girls could not be expected to understand your mother as clearly as
I do," he said. "You were too close to her for that. I think you have
both done wonders."

They had now reached the terrace of Brineweald Park, and it wanted three
quarters of an hour to tea. The two sisters were still under the
peculiar spell of the conversation they had just had with the young
nobleman, and they did not wish to leave him. At last Cleopatra said she
would like to go in search of her mother, and Lord Henry and Leonetta
were left alone.

"Do you read everybody as clearly as you've read brave old Peachy?"
Leonetta asked him.

"I cannot say that," Lord Henry replied, perching himself on the stone
balustrade of the terrace.

"Do you think you can read me?" she enquired.

He chuckled enigmatically.

"I cannot say that I'd get top marks with you," he said.

She laughed. "Do tell me," she cried, "what you read!"

At this moment Denis Malster, Guy Tyrrell, Agatha, and Vanessa appeared
round the corner of the drive, and ran quickly up the steps. Each of the
men bore a gun, and they strode eagerly towards Lord Henry and his
companion.

"Come on, Leo!" Denis exclaimed as he drew near. "Excuse me interrupting
you, but Guy and I are just going into the woods to try and get a couple
of rabbits. Sir Joseph wants them to send to his head messenger at the
office. You'll see some sport."

Lord Henry was silent, and covertly observed the girl at his side.

"Oh, not now!" Leonetta replied, frowning ever so slightly. "Must you go
now?"

"Yes, we must go now," Denis replied, "Sir Joseph wants them to be sent
off to-night. You don't mind, do you, Lord Henry? Perhaps you'd like to
come too?"

Leonetta turned to Lord Henry to see what he would say.

He swung round indolently from the view he had been contemplating, and
faced Malster.

"No thanks, old chap," he said, "I'd rather not, thank you."

"Well, you don't mind Leonetta coming, do you?" Denis persisted, growing
a trifle overanxious and heated.

"Not in the least, of course," the young nobleman replied and turned his
head again in the direction of the landscape.

"Come on, Leo!" Denis repeated, with just a shade of command in his
voice, while Vanessa, Agatha, and Guy looked on spellbound.

"No, I'd rather not, really Denis, thanks!" she said. "We were just on
such an interesting subject. Can't you go after tea?"

"No, I'm afraid not," said Denis, his face flushing slightly with
vexation.

"Well, then, leave me out of it, for once, will you?" Leonetta pleaded.
"You know I should have loved to come. But I've got something I must
finish with Lord Henry."

Denis Malster turned round, hot-eared and savage. "All right," he
muttered. "I only thought you'd like it, that's all." And the four moved
off in the direction of the woods, Denis walking with his head thrown
more than usually back in the style that men commonly adopt when they
are withdrawing from a humiliating interview. It is as if they were
trying, like a drinking hen, to straighten their throats, in order the
better to swallow the insult they have just received.

"I'm afraid that young man will not forgive me," said Lord Henry, when
the party were out of earshot.

"Oh, that's ridiculous," said Leonetta; "as if I'd never seen a bunny
shot in my life before. But let me think, what were we saying? Oh, yes,
I know. You were going to read me."

He laughed.

She looked coyly up at him. "You know, Lord Henry, you really are a
little disconcerting. You are one of those people who make one feel one
ought to have done better at school."

"I devoutly trust I don't," he protested.

She examined his fine intelligent hands, and perceived as so many had
perceived before her, the baffling mixture of deep thoughtfulness and
youth in his eyes and brow.

"You do a little," she said, picking up a leaf and bending it about as
she spoke. "And I do hate feeling stupid."

"You--stupid!" he ejaculated, and laughed.

"You must know what I mean," she added.

"You are beautiful, Leonetta," he said, "and that in itself is the
greatest accomplishment, because it cannot be acquired."

"I thought you hadn't noticed me at all," she observed, trying to
conceal the rapture she felt.

"I don't know about that,--one can't help looking at people who are
constantly about one."

He made an effort to give this remark the ring of indifference, and he
succeeded.

"But that's exactly it!" she cried. "They say that beautiful people are
always stupid. That's why I say----"

"Nobody who knows anything about it says that," he observed, as if he
were stating an interesting axiomatic principle and without a trace of
the leer of the adulator.

"Really?"

"Of course not," he pursued. "For a face to be beautiful, it must have
certain proportions. It must have a certain length of nose, a certain
length of chin, and above all a certain height of brow. Do you
understand?"

"I think so," she replied.

"Well, then,--what is the obvious conclusion?"

"I'm afraid I don't see it," she said.

"I say a certain height of brow is essential to a well-proportioned
face," he remarked with cool persuasiveness. "But what lies beneath the
brow? Come, Leonetta, you know!"

"The brain?" she suggested.

"Of course," he exclaimed. "And what is more, beneath the brow lies the
thinking part of the brain. So that in order really to have a fair face
we must have a fair proportion of brain."

She smiled and bowed her head.

"Peachy's clever, isn't she?" she demanded. "So I suppose we girls ought
not to be so very dull."

"Don't believe those who tell you beautiful people are stupid. It is the
ugly who say that to console themselves. Just as the fools of the world
write books about geniuses being mad."

She laughed. "You do say funny things!" she cried.

"Funny?" he repeated.

"Well, true things then. I wish everybody talked as you do. One feels so
much safer to know the truth about everything."

At this point, however, Cleopatra came towards them from the house.

"I've found Edith at last," she exclaimed. "She's with the others in the
marquee near the rose garden. We're just going to have tea. Are you
coming?"

Lord Henry jumped down from his perch, and Leonetta ran indoors.

"I'll follow you in a moment," she cried gleefully.

Lord Henry and Cleopatra sauntered towards the rose garden. "Have people
been telling you how very much you've improved?" he demanded.

She bowed her head and flushed slightly.

"I don't say it because I wish to hear compliments," he pursued.

"You've done wonders; you know it," she said, not daring to look at him
in her agitation.

"It is you who have done wonders," he replied.

She smiled and looked away.

These two people could not talk to each other. It was impossible. All
attempts hitherto had failed, except just that first attempt when Lord
Henry had received the girl's stirring confession. It was as if both
were trying their mightiest to abide strictly by conventionalities in
order to keep within bounds. It was as if neither of them dared to give
their tongues a free rein. Never had Lord Henry felt so utterly
tongue-tied in a woman's presence; never had Cleopatra looked so serene
while completely incapable of noisy cheerfulness.

"How splendid those two look side by side!" Sir Joseph exclaimed as they
approached the marquee.

Mrs. Delarayne felt a twinge in her heart, and as she proceeded to pour
out tea, her loathing for Denis Malster received such a sudden access of
strength that she found it hard to be civil.

"I don't quite see," she snapped, "why they look more splendid side by
side, as you put it, than one by one."

Miss Mallowcoid cast a glance full of reproach at her sister, and
wondered what it was that induced Sir Joseph to submit as kindly as he
did, day after day, to such monstrous treatment.




CHAPTER XVI


There was a dance at Brineweald that evening, and everybody who was
anybody in the neighbourhood had been invited. The Vicar's family, the
doctor's children, the Swynnertons from Barbacan, the Blights from the
Castle, and one or two people from Folkestone, were among the guests,
while a band had been ordered down from Ashbury for the occasion.

Lord Henry was entirely satisfied with the arrangement. It was
calculated to keep the two Brineweald households under his eye the whole
evening, and to prevent those wanderings which, while they complicated
his task, also made it difficult for him to follow developments.

To Denis Malster, on the other hand, the dance was a most unwelcome
disturbance. Fearing from the turn events had taken that day that he had
not gone far enough with Leonetta in order to be able to rely absolutely
on her single-minded attachment, he foresaw that the dance that evening
would offer few opportunities, if any, of repairing his omission, and he
was accordingly not in the best of moods to enjoy it.

As the sufferer from some fatal disease is the last to be convinced
that his condition is hopeless, so the ardent lover, for whom things are
going none too smoothly, is the last to be persuaded that he is really
losing ground.

He will ascribe his rebuffs to a passing whim on the part of his
beloved, to a momentary lapse in her customary humour, to her food, to a
desire on her part to test him, to transitory evil influences from
outside, to the thermometer, the barometer, the moon!--in fact to
anything, except to the possibility that she could actually have cooled
towards him; and the more overpowering his arrogance happens to be, the
more complex and subtle will be the explanations which his imagination
will furnish for the unpleasant change in his affairs.

That Denis was beginning to feel a deadly hatred for Lord Henry scarcely
requires to be stated. In fact, this feeling in him was so
irrepressible, so rapacious, that it grasped even at morsels of
nourishment it could not obtain, in the desire to strengthen itself.
Thus he had actually come to believe that Lord Henry was a charlatan; he
was prepared to prove that he had immoral intentions against every girl
in his immediate neighbourhood, and he was completely satisfied that,
like Mrs. Delarayne, Lord Henry was decades older than he admitted.

Meanwhile, however, a thousand petty but significant trifles showed
Denis that he no longer exercised that power over Leonetta, and could
no longer claim that whole-hearted devotion from her, which had marked
their relationship only a day or two previously. The girl no longer gave
him her entire attention, neither did she appear to tax her brain to the
same extent as theretofore in order to engross his every thought. From a
solid union which defied all interference, and which therefore made all
interested spectators feel uneasy, their relationship had relaxed into a
harmless and hearty friendship. But it was Leonetta who was shaking
herself loose, and the more tightly Denis clung to the strands of their
former intimacy, the more tenuous these seemed to become,--just as if
his hold on them were more frantic than their strength could bear.

These signs were naturally not lost on Cleopatra. On the contrary, she
registered them every one with the accuracy of a trained observer. And
as surely as the cumulative evidence of all she saw began to point with
ever greater precision in the direction of her sister's fickleness and
mutability, the more her health improved, and the more cheerful she
became. It is remarkable how the state of being overanxious spoils a
creature's humour and mars the brightest sally. A week previously
Cleopatra could say nothing, however bright, that did not fall flat,
even beside a less brilliant outburst of her sister's.

Now, with her increasing serenity, with her restored sleep, and with her
mind at rest about the issue, she recovered her lost spirits; her voice
once more began to be heard at table as often as Leonetta's, and the
traditional savour of Delarayne humour was maintained as faithfully by
the elder as by the younger of the two daughters.

Lord Henry watched this improvement in his patient with lively interest
and amusement, but he quite well realised, notwithstanding, that the
means he had used had been exceptional, and could scarcely have been
recommended as practicable therapeutics to every practising physician in
England. Nevertheless, he felt that he had not yet completely discharged
his duty to Mrs. Delarayne, whom he loved sufficiently to serve with
zeal; and as he walked down to Sir Joseph's ballroom that evening he was
half aware that only the first stage in his campaign had been
successfully fought.

Meanwhile, in addition to the Tribes, Leonetta and her sister, he had
made many friends at Brineweald. Stephen and his sister were devoted to
him,--so in his way was Guy Tyrrell; while it was only Sir Joseph's
constant dread of the young nobleman's mysterious power over Mrs.
Delarayne that prevented him, too, from becoming one of Lord Henry's
devoted adherents.

The dance was a great success. With scrupulous care Lord Henry divided
his attentions equally between Mrs. Delarayne and her two daughters, and
thus broke into Denis Malster's programme with Leonetta with devastating
effect. This young man was bound to dance a few dances with Mrs.
Delarayne and her elder daughter; he was also obliged, out of regard for
Sir Joseph, to attend to some of the baronet's guests; and thus, when it
came to his turn to claim Leonetta, he was scarcely in a mood to be
fascinating.

"What's the matter with you?" he whispered angrily to her, as they swept
up the ballroom.

"Nothing--what do you mean?" she rejoined.

"You're not the same. Have I done anything to upset you?"

"No----"

"Well, tell me, Leo,--tell me what it is! You have been hateful to me
the whole day."

"My dear boy, I haven't. What have I done? I'm just the same, if you
are."

"Just the same?" Denis snorted. "Why, look how you treated me on the
terrace!"

"Oh, that!"

"Yes,--besides, yesterday evening you said that you would tell me to-day
whether you were prepared to do what I suggested. We might have been
well away by now."

Leonetta, who was enjoying the dance far too much to regret not being
"well away by now," tried to appear absent-minded.

"I didn't say to-day--did I?" she observed.

"Oh, well, if you don't remember."

"I may have done."

"Oh, Leo, you don't really love me. You say you do, but you don't."

Nothing on earth is more wearying than an injured and protesting lover.
Better never to have been loved at all than to suffer such persecution.

"My dear boy, what do you want me to do?" she sighed.

"Be as you were three days ago--before----"

"Before what?"

"Before that man came down," Denis ejaculated with the hoarseness of
rage.

She smiled, and there was a suggestion of triumph in the glint of her
large canines.

"He's cured Cleo, any way," she said.

"A nice cure! The heat becomes too intense for somebody, a quack is
called down, the weather cools, as it did twenty-four hours afterwards,
and the quack gets the credit."

In another part of the ballroom Lord Henry and Cleopatra were trying to
entertain one another, and both of them were perspiring freely from the
efforts they were making.

"I think I have at last succeeded in prevailing upon the Tribes to join
me on my trip to China," said Lord Henry, hoping that this subject might
supply more conversation than the previous one had done.

"What will they do?"

"I must have someone, some man who is conscientious, retiring, and
willing to help me and follow my directions without pushing himself
forward. And Tribe is exactly the sort,--unassuming, conscientious, and
meek."

"But what will become of the Inner Light?"

"I hope I shall have dealt that nonsense the severest blow it has ever
received," Lord Henry exclaimed. "At any rate, Mrs. Tribe has done half
the fighting for me. She is most anxious to come. Tribe is simply one of
those people who have an itch to be doing some 'good work.' Give him the
Inner Light or my business in China, he's just as happy. Stephen may
come too."

Cleopatra purred, and looked down at her toe.

"This is a beautiful floor, isn't it?" said Lord Henry at last, when he
found that the topic of the Tribes also fell completely flat.

"Quite as good as the best in town," Cleopatra replied, her lips
quivering slightly. "Sir Joseph had it specially built when he bought
the place."

"The band is quite good, too, for a provincial,--for a provincial sort
of band," Lord Henry added.

Her eyes were still downcast. "Yes, we haven't had these before. Sir
Joseph usually gets a band from Folkestone."

Meanwhile Mrs. Delarayne and Sir Joseph, who together had opened the
dance, were having a somewhat acrimonious discussion.

"My dear Edith, I'll speak to him if you wish me to," reiterated the
baronet for the third time, "but I think it is a little premature."

"I tell you, Joseph, that if you don't speak to him to-morrow, for
certain, and ask him what his intentions are towards Leonetta, I shall
pack up the girls' and my own traps, and off we'll go."

This brought Sir Joseph to his senses. "Shall we both do it?" he
suggested unctuously.

"Very well, if you prefer it. You see I can't ask Lord Henry to speak to
him, otherwise I would."

Sir Joseph almost lost his temper. "Lord Henry, Lord Henry!--my dear
Edith, of course not! What 'as it got to do with Lord 'Enry?"

"No, that's what I say; that's why I ask you."

"All right, you and I will have him in the study to-morrow, and we'll
ask Leonetta up too, and get the whole thing settled."

"But mind!" said the widow gravely, "I am not at all in favour of it."

       *       *       *       *       *

When at one A.M. on the following morning, "The Fastness" party had been
driven home, Leonetta and Vanessa, much too excited to go to bed,
lingered interminably over their undressing, and sat talking until
nearly daybreak.

Vanessa was feeling very happy on the whole, because she had had more
dances with Denis than she had expected. She was therefore quite
prepared to be indulgent towards her school-friend, and to exchange
notes without bitterness.

"You had a lovely time with Lord Henry, didn't you?" she said. "You are
a flirt, Leo!"

"My dear, it was simply heavenly."

"And wasn't Denis wild!" Vanessa exclaimed, hoping to widen the breach
between these two.

"Was he?"

"He was wild enough this afternoon, but when he saw you dancing so often
with Lord Henry--well!----"

"What did he say this afternoon,--do tell me!"

"He said you were too young to be always talking all sorts of deep
things with a man of forty."

Leonetta laughed. "Well, I like that!" she cried. "I wasn't too young
last night, was I?"

"Why, what happened last night?" Vanessa enquired, without revealing a
trace of envy in her inscrutable Jewish eyes.

"Oh, well, never mind. I suppose I ought to say the night before last.
But, anyhow, Lord Henry is not forty. I asked him. He's only
thirty-three."

"Well, I'm only repeating what Denis said," Vanessa observed.

"I know one thing, Lord Henry's jolly clever. Do you know what it is to
feel your skin creep all over while anybody's talking to you even about
simple subjects?"

"Yes--rather!"

"Well, that's what Lord Henry makes me feel. And what's more, he has a
ripping way of putting things scientifically to you. He never flatters
you. He proves to you on scientific principles that you are one of the
best,--do you understand?"

Vanessa was delighted, and, strange as it may seem, so was Leonetta; an
unusual coincidence of sentiment in these two flappers--for Vanessa had
not long ceased from being a flapper--which foreboded no good to any
one.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following day broke dull and wet for the inhabitants of Brineweald,
and for the first hour of the morning the rain was sufficiently heavy to
keep the two households apart.

Lord Henry was therefore thrown on the company of Sir Joseph's party,
and he entertained them, or perhaps disturbed them, as they digested
their breakfast, by discussing various aspects of English matrimonial
arrangements. He had ruminated overnight the principle that Mrs.
Delarayne had laid down in regard to Leonetta,--"that she was much too
good for Denis Malster,"--and he was beginning to see that it was
entirely justified.

"It is a pity," he declared, addressing Miss Mallowcoid, "that it is
almost impossible in this country to arrange matches. I don't see why
you can't, but you can't."

Denis Malster, Guy, and the Tribes dropped their newspapers, and Sir
Joseph doing likewise, regarded the young nobleman with a perplexed
frown.

"Think of the terrible responsibility!" exclaimed Miss Mallowcoid.

"Yes, but that should not deter us,--surely!" Lord Henry rejoined.
"Everything relating to parenthood is responsibility, why shirk that
last duty of all?"

"But they wouldn't let us," Miss Mallowcoid objected.

"Because they don't trust you," Lord Henry replied. "That must be the
reason. They have learned not to trust the mature adult. British parents
are either too indolent, or too incompetent to do the thing properly.
And the consequence is young people have been trained by tradition to
believe that, in the matter of choosing their mates, concerning which
they know literally nothing, and are taught less, they must be left to
their own silly romantic devices."

"But look at the results!" said Miss Mallowcoid. "Surely the arrangement
works."

"Does it? That's precisely what I question," Lord Henry cried.

"You don't mean to say, do you," Denis Malster enquired, "that you would
accept a wife chosen for you by your parents?"

"If they were equipped with the necessary knowledge and insight, most
certainly," Lord Henry retorted.

"So it comes to this," said Mrs. Tribe, "that our matrimonial system in
this country is based upon our parents' lack of the necessary knowledge
and insight."

"Precisely!" Lord Henry exclaimed. "Otherwise they would shoulder the
responsibility cheerfully."

"Nonsense!" snapped Miss Mallowcoid.

"I agree with you," added Denis, turning a smiling face to the old
spinster.

"Why, it's our idea of liberty,--that's what it is!" Miss Mallowcoid
averred.

"Yes; the liberty to do and think the wrong thing nine times out of
ten," was Lord Henry's comment.

Denis Malster rose and went to the window. "Well, I should like the
weather to clear," he said, "so that we could set about doing something
a little more interesting than this."

Miss Mallowcoid and Sir Joseph laughed. The open hostility that was
growing between Lord Henry and the baronet's secretary enabled them to
get many a thrust at the former without so much as grazing their
knuckles.

Lord Henry chuckled. "It is curious," he said quietly, "how doing
something, nowadays, is always assumed to be more interesting than
thinking something."

"But you used to be so fond of arguing, Mr. Malster," Mrs. Tribe
suggested with a malicious smile.

Denis grew hot about the ears, and the Incandescent Gerald, who had a
forgiving heart, frowned reprovingly at his wife.

"Yes, but one gets frightfully sick of hearing one's country and its
institutions constantly run down," said Denis, casting a malevolent
glance at Lord Henry. "My country, right or wrong, is what I say."

"Hear, hear!" cried Miss Mallowcoid. "That's very true."

"Yes, and very immoral," Lord Henry murmured. "It is the motto of
decadence. It means that the moment the Union Jack is unfurled, the
voice of criticism, the intellect, and the first principles of justice
and honest self-analysis, must be stifled."

"Hullo! there's a streak of blue in the sky, and there's 'The Fastness'
_en bloc_!" cried Denis, very much relieved at the sight of his master's
car bearing all Mrs. Delarayne's household.

Everybody went on to the terrace to meet them, and one by one, the
ladies, with Stephen in the rear, came up the steps in their
mackintoshes.

Lord Henry noticed how amply Leonetta's frame filled her smart
rain-coat, and yet how sylph-like she appeared by the side of the rather
more heavy Jewess.

"Let's go for a walk!" she cried, as she greeted the men.

"Yes!" sang Cleopatra, Vanessa, Stephen, and Guy in chorus.

Denis, wishing the invitation had not been so general, endeavoured to
get Leonetta to speak to him for a moment alone, but she sedulously
thwarted his manoeuvres.

"I'm dead!" exclaimed Mrs. Delarayne. "The dance was too much for me. If
anybody killed me now they couldn't justly be charged with taking human
life. Don't ask me to stir till lunch."

The younger people, including the Tribes, therefore agreed to defy the
weather and to walk to Sandlewood and back before luncheon, and, in a
few minutes the whole party was ready: Lord Henry with Cleopatra, Agatha
and Stephen in the van, Leonetta and Vanessa with Denis and Mr. Tribe
next, and Mrs. Tribe and Guy Tyrrell in the rear.

Nothing of very great interest happened on the walk to Sandlewood, and
common subjects of conversation sped backwards and forwards in snatches,
from the front to the rear of the party, interrupted only by laughter
and occasional barely audible comments, which were intended for the
benefit of only one section.

As usual Cleopatra and Lord Henry found it extremely difficult to rise
above the barest platitudes in their talk to each other, and Agatha was
astonished at the emptiness of their conversation. It was partly owing
to this fact that Lord Henry would occasionally start a subject, like a
wave, rolling back over the heads of those behind him, so that the acute
embarrassment that he and Cleopatra felt in each other's presence might
be slightly relieved by the unconscious participation of the others in
their _tête-á-tête_.

Cleopatra was perfectly well now, and appeared supremely happy. But she
still kept her eyes on the ground, and responded almost with nervous
agitation to Lord Henry's remarks. It was as if she felt their
perfunctory nature, their conspicuous jejuneness, and nevertheless,
like him, was utterly unable to broach the discussion of more serious
things.

Stephen, too, was a little disappointed with his hero, and wondered what
could have come over him, that he should suddenly have grown as
commonplace as Sir Joseph himself. He constantly looked back with
curious longing, as the laughter from behind became more persistent, and
it was only hope still undefeated that made him cling to Lord Henry's
side.

When a man on a walk calls the attention of his companions to the
condition of the hedges; when he notices that the road wants mending, or
that the ditches are either clean or overgrown; when, moreover, he
comments on the early discolouration of the leaves of certain distant
trees, it can clearly be due only to one of two causes: either his
conversation never rises above the level of such subjects, or else, some
influence is active which has so severely shaken his composure as to
leave him utterly destitute of thought.

If women divine, even half-consciously, that the latter is the reason,
they are, however, patient and tolerant, where his temporary stupidity
is concerned. But Stephen was not a woman, neither was Agatha
half-consciously aware of the true cause of Lord Henry's transient
dullness.

On the way home there was a general shuffling of the members of the
party, and to Lord Henry's relief, Leonetta, Mrs. Tribe, and Guy
Tyrrell sprang eagerly to his side, while Agatha, Cleopatra, and
Stephen joined Denis, Vanessa, and the Incandescent Gerald in front.

Cleopatra's persistent and yet unaffected affability to Denis had now
become one of the added terrors of Brineweald to this unfortunate young
man, and what struck him as particularly strange was that the more
animated and hilarious became the conversation behind, between Lord
Henry and Leonetta, the more perfectly natural and cheerful did
Cleopatra appear to grow. He had done his utmost to convey to Leonetta
on the walk out that he insisted on her returning with him at her side.
He hoped that the girl had seen what he himself thought he
perceived--that is to say, a growing intimacy between Lord Henry and her
sister,--and that this would induce her to do as he desired. Leonetta,
however, was at times unaccountably dense. She had escaped from him at
Sandlewood, and, to his utter bewilderment, the sound of her voice now,
in animated converse with Lord Henry, seemed to leave Cleopatra entirely
unperturbed.

Had Cleopatra hopes?

Truth to tell, Cleopatra had more than hopes; she was partially
convinced that these were confirmed. She could be affable to Denis, she
could be kind to Leonetta,--aye, she could even have embraced her worst
tormentor now, and with sincere friendship, because she was supremely
and profoundly happy. Even if Lord Henry did not feel anything for
her,--and his extraordinary behaviour rather invalidated that
alternative,--she had at least encountered a man who rose to the
standard of her girlhood's ideal, who made her feel that hitherto she
had not been wrong in experiencing a faint feeling of dissatisfaction
about the other men she had met, and who therefore consoled her for
having waited. And, with this conviction in her heart, she was able at
once to classify Denis Malster among the "impossibles." She saw now how
much more her recent trouble had been the outcome of wounded vanity,
than of thwarted passion, and she was able to treat her former admirer
with a lavish good humour and friendliness that completely froze him.

She too caught snatches of the conversation behind. She heard how
animated and hilarious it was. And, comparing it with Lord Henry's
attitude not thirty minutes previously, she felt convinced that it was
she this time, and not her sister, who had conquered. As she came to
this conclusion, a strange thrill, utterly new and inexperienced
theretofore, pervaded her whole body, until the titillation of her
nerves became almost painful, and a fierce longing for the bewildering
personality at her back suddenly possessed her as a conscious and
uncontrollable desire.

When they were half-way out of the wood Leonetta suddenly announced that
she had dropped a bangle. She and Lord Henry had been losing ground for
some time, and having separated themselves from Mrs. Tribe and Guy
Tyrrell, had fallen much to the rear.

"Are you sure you had it with you?"

"Absolutely certain," she exclaimed.

"Let's go back then," said Lord Henry.

They turned and began to retrace their steps along the path that led
back to Sandlewood village, keeping their eyes on the ground as they
went.

Suddenly a cry from Guy made them stop.

"What are you two up to?" he shouted. "You'll be late for lunch."

"All right, you go back and tell them to start without us!" cried Lord
Henry. "Leonetta's lost her bangle."

Guy nodded, and continued on his way homeward with Mrs. Tribe.

"That's a nice thing!" Lord Henry observed.

"Of course, they'll think I've done it on purpose!" Leonetta rejoined,
smiling roguishly.

Lord Henry smiled too. She certainly seemed to understand that her
character was not incompatible with such a conclusion.

They walked on thus for about five minutes, and then suddenly Lord Henry
espied the ornament lying in the mud.

"Oh, I'm so thankful to you, Lord Henry,--you've no idea!" she cried. "I
should never have found it myself."

Lord Henry was facing the homeward path, and she had her back turned to
it. With great care he removed the offending particles of mud from the
recovered treasure, and then fastened it on her arm. At the same moment,
at a bow-shot from him, he saw Denis approaching at a rapid pace through
the wood. Evidently he was coming in the hope of finding the bangle, and
behind him followed Vanessa and the Incandescent Gerald.

It seemed as if Fate itself had been active here, and had laid this
unique opportunity in Lord Henry's hands. It was certainly too good to
lose, and feeling perfectly certain that Denis could not know that his
approach had been perceived, resolved immediately upon a drastic, but as
he thought, conclusive measure.

It was unfortunate that the Incandescent Gerald, whose sole object in
coming was probably his besetting desire to "do good work," as Lord
Henry put it, was also in sight. But there are certain risks that a good
strategist must run.

"Oh, you don't know how thankful I am!" Leonetta cried again.

Lord Henry smiled. There was no time to lose. "I think that almost
deserves a kiss," he said, placing an arm round her waist.

She looked up; her expression spelt consent, and he held her for some
seconds in his arms.

"Well!" she cried, releasing herself; "it seems to me I go from bad to
worse."

He looked in the direction of home, and, as he feared, Vanessa, Denis,
and the Incandescent Gerald had turned their backs, and were racing as
hard as they could towards Brineweald Park.




CHAPTER XVII


"Are you sure it's quite clean?" asked Lord Henry, catching hold of her
hand and examining the bangle closely, so as to retain her a few moments
longer.

"What does it matter?" Leonetta cried. "Really, I'm sure it's all
right."

He looked up. There was no sign of the three fugitives, and he allowed
her to turn round.

"Now we must step it out, I'm afraid," he said.

Leonetta laughed gleefully. "What fun, isn't it?" she chirped. "I wonder
how it fell off!"

"Simply one of those strange accidents which go to determine the course
of our lives," he observed calmly. "By accidentally throwing a tennis
ball further than he intended, Sir Sidney Smith was ultimately able to
decide the fate of Napoleon's campaign in Syria; the British Throne was
once lost by just such an accident as this, and Kellermann's charge at
Marengo was of the same order."

She looked up into his thoughtful face. His self-possession was one of
the most wonderful features about him.

"What do you mean?" she exclaimed. "I hardly know whether you are
serious or not."

"Have you never heard," he pursued, "of the story of that priceless
Arabian pearl, which, after it had been missing for months was
ultimately returned to its owner by a bird? Meanwhile, however, the
owner in question had been robbed of all he possessed, and the pearl
itself would certainly have gone too, if it had not been accidentally
hidden where only the bird could have found it. One day the bird was
killed, the treasure was found in its nest, and the owner was restored
to a state of affluence, of which, if the pearl had not originally been
lost, he must have despaired till the end of his days.

"You are walking fast," said Leonetta breathlessly.

"Yes,--do you mind?"

"We shan't be so very late."

"I should prefer not to be late," said Lord Henry, "I know Sir Joseph
studies punctuality."

Truth to tell, the young nobleman's imagination had for the last few
minutes been busy with more vital matters than the framing of fresh
contributions to the Arabian Nights' Entertainment, and he was feeling
none too well at ease. It had occurred to him that his drastic action
might have more disastrous effects than merely nipping Denis's passion
in the bud, and he wished to rejoin the company at Brineweald at the
earliest possible moment.

"I assure you, Lord Henry, that you can take it much more easily," cried
Leonetta.

"Let me give you my arm," he suggested. "That will help you."

She took his arm, and he proceeded to tell her how probably a chance
unpleasant word dropped by Charles I. to Lady Carlisle had ultimately
led to the Grand Rebellion.

Meanwhile, Denis Malster, panting more with fury than from the violent
exercise he had taken, had reached the terrace of Brineweald Park, and
was looking about him for someone to whom he could confide his
incriminating intelligence against Lord Henry.

"All alone?" cried Mrs. Delarayne, coming towards him. "My word, how hot
you look!"

"Vanessa and Tribe are close behind," he said; "they'll be here in a
minute. Where are the others?"

"Cleopatra, Agatha, Agnes, and Guy have just come in," replied the
widow. "But where's Leonetta?"

"She's somewhere," he said indifferently. "Lost her bangle or
something." And he passed on, making towards the smoking-room, the door
of which was open.

Evidently Mrs. Delarayne was not to be his confidante, and, as he
vanished behind the glass doors, she wondered what his strange manner
could signify.

There was no one in the smoking-room, and he moved on into the lounge.

Sir Joseph was there, sipping an _aperitif_ with Guy, and sitting
around them were Miss Mallowcoid and the first arrivals, still clad in
their mackintoshes. They were all discussing the arrangement for some
rabbit shooting in the afternoon. Sir Joseph wanted the rabbits for his
men in Lombard Street.

Cleopatra and everyone looked up as Denis entered.

"Well?" enquired Guy, "did you find the bangle?"

Denis braced himself for a great effort and, smiling with as much good
humour as he could muster, helped himself to a glass of sherry.

"Yes, what about the bangle?" Stephen exclaimed.

"When I last saw them," Denis observed with creditable composure, "they
were too busy kissing to be able to find any bangle."

As he pronounced these words he glanced furtively at Cleopatra, but
although he noticed that she winced, he was not a little surprised to
see how collected and serene she remained. Did she perhaps think he was
lying?

"They were what?" cried Miss Mallowcoid.

"Too busy, kissing,--kissing," Sir Joseph repeated.

The spinster rose.

"Rubbish!" cried Stephen. "He's only joking, Miss Mallowcoid."

"Of course!" interjected Mrs. Tribe.

"Well, what of it?" Sir Joseph exclaimed, "even if they were."

"But who, who were kissing?" the old spinster demanded, going up to
Denis.

Denis laid his empty glass upon the tray and walked quietly out. Miss
Mallowcoid evidently taking his departure as a hint, followed close
behind.

In the smoking-room he turned and faced her.

"What is all this about?" she enquired.

"Well, I don't know what you think," said Denis with tremendous gravity;
"but really, when a man close on forty, not only entertains a child with
all kinds of unsuitable conversation, but also inveigles her into the
woods alone in order to kiss her, it seems to me things have really gone
far enough."

"You don't mean Lord Henry, do you?" ejaculated Miss Mallowcoid,
clasping her hard white hands in horror.

"I'm sorry to say I do!" Denis rejoined just as Vanessa and the
Incandescent Gerald, who had also returned home, came in through the
smoking-room and vanished into the lounge.

"Oh, but this it monstrous!" cried Miss Mallowcoid. "Does her mother
know?"

"No, I've said nothing," said Denis, as the gong went for lunch. "If I
hadn't been pressed I shouldn't have said anything even now."

"Oh, but it was very noble of you to tell us," said Miss Mallowcoid,
pondering a moment what she could do. "Very noble. Thank you, thank you,
Denis!"

Meanwhile Vanessa and the Incandescent Gerald had naturally been
questioned by Sir Joseph, and Lord Henry's champion, Stephen; and it was
not until the Incandescent Gerald had admitted very solemnly and
reluctantly that he was afraid he did see Lord Henry embrace Leonetta,
that Stephen was appeased, or rather silenced.

"Well, I'm surprised, that's all," said the youth, and as he said this,
Cleopatra, very pale and a little unsteady on her feet, glided quietly
out of the room.

She had disbelieved it until the end. It was only when the incorruptible
Gerald Tribe had admitted it that she also had been convinced.

       *       *       *       *       *

In a few minutes the whole party, except Cleopatra, was assembled round
the luncheon table. Lord Henry and Leonetta had returned, and what with
her joy over her recovered bangle, and her pride in Lord Henry's
recently revealed affection, few could have looked more guiltless and
more free from care than the heroine of the morning's adventure.

Miss Mallowcoid ate little. Her faith in the desirability of human life
in general had been rudely shaken. She therefore kept her eyes fastened
sadly on the immoral couple, and wondered how two such sinful beings
could eat and talk so heartily.

Lord Henry, however, was not quite as bright as his fellow sinner, for
the dramatic absence of Cleopatra from the luncheon table made him feel
somewhat apprehensive. From the way in which Mrs. Delarayne assured him
that it was only a passing _migraine_ that was keeping her daughter
away, he was led to hope that it was truly only one of those curious
accidents, or coincidences, concerning which he had been discoursing to
Leonetta on the way home; but he was not devoid of sensitiveness, and
something in the manner of all present, except Mrs. Delarayne, led him
to fear the worst.

He was not at all alarmed by Denis's haggard and angry mask, for that he
had expected. What he would like to have known was why Miss Mallowcoid
and Sir Joseph regarded him so strangely, and why Stephen looked so sad.

Denis scarcely addressed a word to Leonetta, and whenever he was
constrained to vouchsafe a laconic answer to any question from her, he
glanced significantly at Miss Mallowcoid for her approval.

After lunch Lord Henry conveyed to Mrs. Delarayne that he would like to
speak to her alone, and she followed him out on to the terrace.

"I want to see Cleopatra,--do you think I might?" he said.

"I'll go and ask her," replied the widow.

"By-the-bye," he added, "have you been told anything about Leonetta and
myself in the wood this morning?"

"No," she replied, with perfect honesty.

"Well, whatever you may hear," he said, "trust entirely to me."

She smiled approvingly, and went off in search of Cleopatra.

Lord Henry joined the others. He was certainly very much relieved to
hear that Mrs. Delarayne had been told nothing. Did that mean that
Cleopatra also had been told nothing? He noticed, however, that as soon
as he came up to the group consisting of Miss Mallowcoid, Denis, Sir
Joseph, and Guy, their conversation stopped.

"Who's going rabbit-shooting?" he demanded.

"We all are!" cried Mrs. Tribe, coming towards him from another part of
the terrace; "isn't it fun?"

Mrs. Tribe was the only member of the party, besides Leonetta, who was
still perfectly affable to him, but even in her eyes, he thought he saw
the suggestion of strained good cheer.

"May I come?" he asked.

"Of course!" cried Leonetta.

"I shall want you for a minute or two, remember, Denis," Sir Joseph
observed. "Mrs. Delarayne has told you, I think."

"Yes, sir," said Denis.

At this moment Mrs. Delarayne reappeared. She looked a trifle anxious
and motioned to Lord Henry to join her.

"Well?" he enquired.

"I'm afraid she must have gone home," she said. "She can't be found."

"Can't be found?" cried Lord Henry, with a note of deep alarm in his
voice. Could she possibly have been among those who that morning had
returned to help find the bangle, and he had not seen her, though she
had seen him?

"Oh, I shouldn't worry," continued Mrs. Delarayne. "She's gone home,
that's all. Don't look so dreadfully concerned!"

"Do you really think so?" he enquired. He felt uneasy notwithstanding.
The coincidence, if it were a coincidence, was singular in the extreme.
And yet he could not believe that Denis had told her, and Vanessa and
Tribe had surely not had time to do so. He had seen them ascend the
steps of the terrace. Besides,--why should they? Nevertheless, the
predicament was an awkward one. He had counted on speaking to Cleopatra
directly after lunch.

"Would you mind if I went to 'The Fastness'?" he asked.

"Certainly not. Go by all means," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined. "But is it as
urgent as all that?"

"It's very urgent," said Lord Henry.

She scrutinised him for a moment in silence. She had always had a dark
presentiment that her daughters would come between her and this man.

Lord Henry turned back into the house, fetched his hat and rain-coat,
and in a moment was striding rapidly towards the Brineweald gate.

       *       *       *       *       *

The shooting party was to leave at three o'clock, and two of the
under-keepers with the ferrets were to meet them at the edge of the wood
at a quarter past. It was now half-past two. Sir Joseph was enjoying his
afternoon nap. Mrs. Delarayne, closeted in the library, was listening to
her sister's indictment of Lord Henry, and the others were chatting on
the terrace.

Denis, who had a pretty shrewd suspicion of what his interview with Sir
Joseph and Mrs. Delarayne portended, looked anxiously at his watch and
rose. He signed to Leonetta that he would like her to join him, but as
she made no effort to move, he went over to her, and leaning over the
back of her chair, whispered that he would be glad if she would take a
short stroll with him.

She rose laboriously, as if he were placing himself under a tremendous
obligation to her, by making her go to so much trouble; and, after
assuring the others that she would not be long, followed Denis with that
jerky mutinous gait in which each footfall is an angry stamp;--it is
characteristic of women all the world over, when they are induced to do
something of which they disapprove. For she was wondering where Lord
Henry could be, and feared lest, by leaving the terrace, she would miss
him when he returned.

"You know we start off at three," she said to Denis, as she caught him
up.

"Yes, I know," he replied gruffly.

"Well, we haven't much time, have we?

"You're not going far, are you?"

"Only to the rose-garden," he snapped. "Don't be alarmed! I shan't keep
you longer than I can help."

He lighted a cigarette. Vaguely he felt that some such subsidiary
occupation might prove helpful.

"In a moment of pardonable madness," he began, "the night before last,
when I rather lost my head in my passion, I made a proposition to you
which I should now like to recall."

"Oh," she said.

"I don't mean that it was not sincere," he pursued, "or that I was not
moved by an unalterable feeling. I mean that it was not serious enough."

"Not serious enough?" she repeated.

"No, perhaps it was not quite the right thing, either," he said. "And
I'm very sorry."

"Oh, that's all right," she rejoined cheerfully.

"Well, it isn't," he observed. "Because, Leo, I seriously wanted you,
and I want you still. And I ought to have asked you to become engaged to
me in the proper and ordinary way, instead of what I did say."

She was silent. Her head was bowed, and she kicked one or two stones
along as she walked.

He caught hold of her hand. "I want you to forget what I said the night
before last," he continued, "and to ascribe it all to the madness of my
feelings. I want you to say, too, that I may consider,--that from now
onwards I mean,--that we are properly engaged."

Still she made no reply.

"Come, Leo, you're not hesitating, are you? Won't you marry me?"

She stopped, released her hand from his, and averted her gaze.

"Say you'll marry me, Leo! So that I can tell them in a minute or two
that you have consented. Do!"

"Whatever made you think of this?" she exclaimed fretfully.

"I have been thinking of it for some time. I mean it truly," he
stammered.

"But I thought you loved my sister!"

Denis retreated a step or two and regarded the girl for a moment in
mystified silence.

He was staggered. This piece of brazen audacity on her part petrified
him, and his face betrayed his speechless astonishment.

"I really did, Denis. I thought you loved Cleo."

"But then," he gasped, "what--what have you and I been doing all this
time?"

"When?"

"Why, the day before yesterday, and the day before that, and the day
before that!--in fact ever since I came down here?"

"Oh, I thought you were simply having a good time," she protested,
looking perfectly guileless and charming.

"Well!" he exclaimed, choking with mingled stupefaction and rage, "I've
never heard anything----"

"I did really," she interrupted. "I thought you were only flirting."

"You let me go far enough to believe anything," he objected, this time
with a savour of moral indignation.

"I thought it was too far to believe anything," was her retort.

"Haven't you any feeling for me, then?" he cried, utterly nonplussed.

She dug the toe of her shoe into the ground, and watched the operation
thoughtfully. "Not in that way--no."

"What?--do you allow anybody to hug you then?"

"No, of course not!" she replied. "I did like you, and I like you still.
But not in that way."

"What do you mean--not in that way?" he demanded a little angrily.

"Oh, I don't know," she replied, beginning to swing her arms with
boredom; "I mean that I hadn't looked upon you as a possible husband, I
suppose."

He flushed with vexation.

"Why not?" he enquired in scolding tones.

She glanced into his face for the first time during the interview. She
saw the bloated look of mortified vanity in his eyes, and she was a
trifle nauseated.

"Let's be getting back," she suggested.

He turned reluctantly in the direction of the house.

"You have not spoken the truth, Leo," he remarked in the tense manner of
one who is making a violent effort to moderate his fury.

"I'm certainly trying to," she said.

"Shall I tell you the truth?" he snarled.

"No--please don't!"

He was silent for a moment, swallowing down his wrath.

"It's that man!" he said at last. "That's who it is. If I had asked you
three days ago you would--you would have consented. It's that man!"

She cast a glance askance at him. He was boiling with mortification now,
and perhaps nothing makes even the noblest features look more mean than
the smart of a rebuff.

"I'm sure I don't know what you're driving at," she said calmly.

He laughed bitterly. But his cheeks were pricking him, and the garden
danced before his eyes.

"It's Lord Henry, of course," he sneered. "He has conquered your
affections meanwhile."

"Don't be ridiculous!" she said.

"Well, shall I go and tell him for you this minute that you are
perfectly indifferent to him?"

She made an effort to compose her features. "You can if you like," she
replied.

"No, that wouldn't suit your little game, would it?"

"I have no little game," she snapped.

"No, it's big game,--the son of a marquis!"

They were at the foot of the terrace. He had succeeded in infuriating
her. Her eyes shot fire and she stamped her foot. "That's simply
vulgar!" she cried, loud enough for those on the terrace to hear.
"You're vulgar!"

He retreated hastily to the steps that led to the drawing-room, whence
he regarded her with a malevolent scowl. He could have said so much more
to her, so many more wounding things. It was intolerable to be called
"vulgar," when one had controlled one's wrath as he had done.

Meanwhile she, bracing herself for a dignified entrée, walked slowly up
the steps, and faced the others who were just about to move off to the
woods.

"Why, I haven't a gun!" she exclaimed, as she joined them.

"Here you are!" said Stephen. "I've brought one for you."

She smiled gratefully at him. "That was thoughtful of you," she said.

And Stephen, feeling somehow that, since her affair with Lord Henry that
morning, Leonetta had gone over at one step to that vast majority of
worldly females who, in his boyish imagination, appeared to him
mistresses of the great secrets of life, blushed slightly and turned his
head away.




CHAPTER XVIII


Sir Joseph, having risen from his post-prandial snooze and found Mrs.
Delarayne, had led that lady to the drawing-room, and was now engaged in
trying to convince her of the general wisdom of all that she had been
hearing from her sister.

"I tell you, my dear Edith," he said, "that I have considerable
difficulty in believing that your Lord Henry is the great man you say he
is."

"Of course you have," she cried. "It is always difficult to believe that
a really great man could ever deign to cross our threshold, much less
shake hands with us! We feel we are too mediocre for that!"

"I don't mean that!" he said, shaking his head helplessly, although he
had not understood her real meaning.

"Joseph,"--Mrs. Delarayne began seriously,--"shall I tell you what it
is? You are jealous."

He laughed uproariously. "Oh, Edith, it takes you to say a thing like
that! Absurd! Absurd!" Then he added seriously. "But really, I have
heard things about Lord Henry that have compelled me to lose my respect
for him."

"Who told you?"

"Denis, for one."

"Denis is jealous too!" cried the widow.

"Now, my dear, do be reasonable! Are we all jealous of Lord Henry then?"

"I should think it most highly probable--yes."

"Well, anyway," Sir Joseph continued, frowning darkly, "Denis assured me
on his oath,--on his oath, understand, that Lord Henry, this son of a
noble marquis, this wonderful nerve specialist, this reformer of the
world, this----"

"Yes, all right, Joseph. You don't shine at that sort of oratory. What
has Lord Henry done?"

"He has not only constantly engaged Leonetta in unsuitable conversation,
but to-day, he actually kissed her!"

Mrs. Delarayne laughed. "I told you Denis was jealous," she exclaimed.
"Knights errant always are. I've always suspected that St. George was
jealous of the dragon."

Nevertheless, while Sir Joseph's slow brain was working this out, she
snatched a moment to ponder how her noble young friend could possibly
have found it necessary to go to such unexpected extremes.

"Don't be unfair, Edith," Sir Joseph objected. "Denis was quite right to
tell us. Lord Henry is much too old to kiss a child like Leonetta."

"You mean he is just old enough."

The baronet waved his hands in a mystified manner before him. "I cannot
understand you," he replied.

It was at this point that Denis burst in upon them.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "you wanted to discuss something with me,
I believe," he added, addressing Sir Joseph.

"Yes, we did,--that is to say, Mrs. Delarayne," stammered the baronet.
He was always a little uncomfortable when he felt constrained to be
amiable to one of his staff.

"We both wished to speak to you, Denis," said Mrs. Delarayne. "Sit down,
will you."

Denis sat down and folded his arms,--a position Mrs. Delarayne had never
seen him assume before.

"It is about Leonetta," she added.

"Oh, yes," said Denis. He was completely dazed. He had just felt that
"one touch of nature" which nowadays sets the whole world's teeth on
edge,--Eve completely and cheerfully unscrupulous, Eve wild and untamed,
cruel and heartless while her deepest passions are still unengaged,--and
he felt like one bewitched.

"We wish to ask you," began Sir Joseph pompously.

"Please let me speak," interrupted the widow. "We have noticed,--nobody
could have helped noticing,--that since you have been down here you have
been paying my daughter Leo unusually marked attention."

"But surely you have also noticed--" Denis objected.

"One moment!" cried Mrs. Delarayne. "I do not say that Leo isn't
attractive. I know she's exceedingly attractive,--so attractive that, I
understand, even Lord Henry appears to have fallen a victim to her
charm."

"Yes, and perhaps you have also heard--" the young man muttered with
some agitation.

"I have heard everything," said the widow. "All I suggest is, that since
Leo is still a child, and has not perhaps the strength to bear a heavy
heart strain as easily as a girl of Cleopatra's age, we should like any
attitude you choose to adopt towards her to be made perfectly plain from
the start. Do you understand, Denis? I don't wish to be unfriendly."

"I can assure you," protested Denis, who had been rendered none too
comfortable by the sting in Mrs. Delarayne's last remarks, "that all
along I have always been in deadly earnest, I have always----"

"Hush!" cried the masterful matron. "I don't want to hear now what your
sentiments are. All I want you to do is to be quite plain to my little
daughter. Do you want to become engaged to her, or not?"

"I do most earnestly," said the young man, "but----"

"But what?" growled Sir Joseph sternly.

"She now says she has no feeling whatever for me," Denis explained.

The baronet turned upon his secretary, scowled, and then regarded Mrs.
Delarayne in astonishment. "No feeling whatever?" he repeated.

"Has she actually told you this?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded with tell-tale
eagerness.

"Yes, this minute," Denis replied. "I can hardly believe it," he added
with the usual ingenuousness of all vain people. "I can only think that
a momentary infatuation for Lord Henry, who has spared no pains to----"

"Do you mean that you have asked her to marry you and she's refused?"
Sir Joseph enquired, observing the young man's painful discomfiture.

"Yes, this very minute."

"Quite positively?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded.

"As far as I can make out--yes," Denis replied. He was so completely
bewildered by the rebuff, that the incredulity of his two seniors made
it seem all the more impossible to him.

"'Pon my soul!" Sir Joseph exclaimed, utterly abashed.

He could get no further. The prospects of getting Mrs. Delarayne's
daughters married appeared to grow gloomier and gloomier.

"Then that's settled, you see, Sir Joseph," Mrs. Delarayne remarked. She
had been induced to have this interview with Denis against her will. Her
sister and the baronet had prevailed over her better judgment, and now
that she saw the issue of it was to be more satisfactory than she could
possibly have hoped, she had difficulty in concealing her pleasure.

At this point the report of a fire-arm made them all turn in the
direction of Sandlewood.

"They seem to have got a rabbit before reaching the woods," Sir Joseph
observed. "That sounded extraordinarily near."

Mrs. Delarayne was silent. She was obviously making an effort not to
appear too highly gratified by the news she had heard, and was regarding
Denis thoughtfully,--her eyebrows slightly raised, and her fingers
drumming lightly on the arms of her chair.

"Well, then," she repeated, "I'm afraid that's settled,--isn't it, Sir
Joseph?"

Another report was heard, and Sir Joseph rose.

"I wonder what the deuce they're doing!" he exclaimed going to the
window.

"Probably got a stray rabbit, or a hare, on their way," suggested Denis.

Sir Joseph turned from the window to face his secretary.

"That's very odd. So she refused you?" he said.

"Absolutely."

"But you shouldn't despair over one refusal," he exclaimed, casting a
glance full of meaning at Mrs. Delarayne. "A man doesn't lie down under
one reverse of that sort."

He chuckled, and glanced backwards and forwards, first at his secretary
and then at Mrs. Delarayne, hoping she would understand his profound
implication.

"You must 'ave more perseverance," he added.

Denis remembered the word "vulgar." He remembered the concentrated fury
and contempt that the flapper had put into the expression, and he
instinctively felt that it was hopeless.

"I think what I should like to do," he said, "is to leave here, if you
will allow me to; finish my holiday elsewhere, and see whether,
meanwhile, a change may not come over Leonetta. If it doesn't, then
there's an end of it."

"You mean to leave here at once?" enquired the baronet.

"Yes," interposed Mrs. Delarayne; and then she proceeded to explain to
Sir Joseph what Denis meant, and declared his scheme to be eminently
dignified and proper. It met with her entire approval.

A discussion followed as to the best way of explaining to the others the
reason of Denis's sudden departure, and various suggestions were made.
Sir Joseph volunteered to be able to account for the young man's absence
on the score of business. Denis himself inclined to the view that some
family trouble would provide the best excuse. His mother might be ill.
But Mrs. Delarayne, anxious above all to avoid the sort of explanation
that might provoke dangerous sympathies for Denis in any female heart,
agreed that a business excuse would be best.

It was therefore decided that Sir Joseph would receive a sudden summons
from London, that Denis would be dispatched to attend to the business,
and that what happened after that the rest of the party would not need
to be told.

All at once a commotion on the terrace, in which the clamour of a score
of different voices, all making different suggestions at the same time,
mingled with the sound of heavy footfalls, caused the party in the
drawing-room to repair to the scene of the disturbance.

"What on earth's the matter?" cried Mrs. Delarayne aghast, as she beheld
the group advancing slowly from the top of the steps. "Anybody hurt?"

"Yes," said Agatha coming towards her, and looking very much agitated.
"Stephen has been shot in the shoulder."

"Nothing serious!" shouted the injured youth, as he came forward on the
arms of Guy and the Incandescent Gerald.

"Has a doctor been sent for?" Sir Joseph demanded.

"Yes, one of the under-keepers went to the garage, and a car left a
moment ago," said Agatha.

"But how did it happen?" cried Mrs. Delarayne shrilly.

"Lord Henry did it," said Miss Mallowcoid, nodding her head resentfully,
as if to imply to her sister that now there could no longer be any
question as to who had been right all this time in regard to their
estimate of the young nobleman.

"Lord Henry?" Mrs. Delarayne repeated, utterly confused.

"Yes, he did it by accident," Mrs. Tribe explained.

"Lord Henry!" the baronet ejaculated under his breath. "Damn Lord
Henry!" And Mrs. Delarayne, Miss Mallowcoid, and Denis regarded him each
in their own peculiar way.

Stephen was laid on Mrs. Delarayne's _chaise-longue_ on the terrace.
Brandy was fetched and Mrs. Delarayne knelt down beside him. His
shoulder was already neatly bandaged, but his torn shirt, his waistcoat,
and his sleeve, were saturated with blood.

"Is it painful, dear lad?" Mrs. Delarayne enquired.

"No, not so very," he replied.

"He only says that, of course!" Miss Mallowcoid averred in a whisper to
Sir Joseph. "But you can see he's in agony." The spinster was evidently
desirous of making the case look as black as possible.

"Who bandaged him up like that?" Sir Joseph asked of Guy.

"Lord Henry."

Sir Joseph tossed his head. It seemed as if he must never hear the last
of that name. "But where is he?" he enquired.

"I can't think," said Mrs. Tribe. "As soon as he had sent someone after
a doctor and bandaged Stephen up, he ran away from us."

Sir Joseph repeated "ran away from you," with an air of complete
mystification, and Miss Mallowcoid raised her brows more than ever, as
if to imply that she, at least, expected nothing else.

"Yes," added Leonetta, "he left us and went in the direction of 'The
Fastness'."

"I wonder where that jackass has gone for a doctor?" exclaimed the
baronet after a while. "Did you see the car go?"

"Yes," whispered Leonetta, "the car left long before we had brought
Stephen here. We wanted it to drop him first, but he insisted on
walking."

Then in the distance the sound of a familiar motor-horn was heard, and
through the trees could be seen the glittering brass-work of a car. The
baronet's head chauffeur in smart mufti was driving,--he had been caught
just as he was setting out for an evening in Folkestone,--and the car
darted along the drive, and gracefully took all the corners in a manner
that gladdened the hearts of the anxious spectators on the terrace.

A grating of wheels on the ground, a spasmodic lunge forward, and the
vehicle stopped dead at the foot of the steps.

An elderly gentleman descended from the car.

"Thank goodness!" cried Mrs. Delarayne, "it's Dr. Thackeray!"

       *       *       *       *       *

It is now necessary to turn the clock back about three quarters of an
hour, in order to follow the movements of Lord Henry from the moment
when he left the terrace of Brineweald Park.

It was a sure instinct that made him lose no time in trying to discover
Cleopatra's whereabouts; for, from the very first, the coincidence of
her sudden indisposition, following upon his behaviour with Leonetta in
the wood that morning, had struck him as a little too strange to be
accepted without suspicion. She had looked so well the whole morning,
and had appeared to be enjoying the walk quite as much as any of the
others. Knowing, moreover, the passionate girl she was, he could only
fear the worst if she had been told anything; and, since any disaster
that might follow would be due to a miscalculation on his part, he felt
it incumbent upon him to do everything in his power to repair the
mistake he had made.

In that brief moment in the woods with Leonetta, he had wished to
achieve but one object,--to show Denis plainly and finally that Leonetta
could not be his. He wished so unmistakably to register this fact upon
Denis's mind, that he felt it would simplify matters enormously if that
young man could, with his own eyes, see something which, while it would
abate his ardour, would also show him how easy and how devoid of dignity
had been the game he had been playing for the last fortnight at
Brineweald.

The sudden return of Denis to help to find the bangle had been the
opportunity. Unfortunately, Lord Henry felt that he had not reckoned
sufficiently with two possibilities, each of which, in itself, was
serious enough: on the one hand, Denis's return to Brineweald long
before himself, and on the other, the confirmation that Vanessa and
Tribe might offer to Denis's report, if Denis chose to tell. First of
all, in the few seconds he had had to consider the matter, it had struck
him as extremely improbable that Denis would either have the time or the
inclination to tell Cleopatra direct, before he himself had had a chance
of speaking to her; and, secondly, he had doubted whether Vanessa and
Tribe could actually have seen him embracing Leonetta.

In these circumstances he had taken the risk which he felt he was
entitled to take in war; but apparently,--at least so he feared,--he had
miscalculated. He had failed to take into account Denis's mad fury, and
the extremes to which this might possibly drive him.

He had not once been mistaken in his estimate of the kind of human life
with which he was experimenting; for he had correctly anticipated the
probable effects that the knowledge of his action would have upon
Cleopatra. He had, however, certainly staked upon luck, and, this time,
it appeared to have turned against him.

Thus he was tormented by the gravest qualms as he made his way to "The
Fastness," and when Wilmott informed him that Miss Cleopatra had not
been seen since she had gone with the rest of Mrs. Delarayne's party in
Sir Joseph's car, early that morning, his worst fears were confirmed.

"Would you mind looking all over the house?" he said. "It is just
possible she may have come in without your noticing."

The girl obeyed and even invited him to join in the search. Their
efforts, however, revealed no trace of Cleopatra.

Lord Henry was at his wits' end. He began to be filled by a secret
feeling of guilt, a feeling that he had gone too far. He had been
foolhardy; he had exceeded his duty. Nothing remained to fortify him, in
his present tragic dilemma, but the conviction that he had acted all
along as if the affair, far from being a matter simply for Cleopatra's
family, had been his personal business, his intimate concern.

He thought of the beach. It did not strike him as probable that the girl
would have gone thither in her solitary despair. However, he wished to
allow for every possible chance. He therefore went to the grocer's at
Brineweald and telephoned to Stonechurch, to the establishment that
provided hot sea-baths on the front. Had they heard of any disaster
among the bathers on the beach during the last two hours? Had any
disaster been reported from the lonely portions of the shore? Would
someone please go out to enquire? In a few minutes he received a
reassuring reply, and he left the shop. In his present state of mind,
however, even if he had been told that she had attempted suicide in the
waves and been rescued, at least this intelligence would have provided
something definite to which to cling, and he would have felt almost
grateful.

He enquired of one or two cottagers whether they had seen the elder Miss
Delarayne at all that day; but again his efforts were entirely
fruitless.

Her rescue might be a matter of minutes, perhaps of seconds, and yet it
seemed as if he could do nothing. Never had he gazed upon a peaceful
village street with feelings of such tumultuous woe. Helplessness and
impotence are intolerable at any time, but they are the cruellest
torture when a dear human life seems to be at stake.

It occurred to him that she might have gone to Sandlewood, which was the
nearest station, and where the stationmaster would be sure to have seen
her. She might already have taken the train in the London direction, or
to Shorncliffe or Folkestone. In any case he was so deeply convinced
that her disappearance portended tragedy, that he began to wonder
whether he ought not at once to inform the police.

Had he been less involved in the affair, himself, he would have done so
immediately; but his hopes of finding some trace of her at Sandlewood
station induced him to wait. If he failed again, he would inform the
authorities.

Thus resolved, he returned as quickly as possible to Brineweald Park, in
order to take advantage of the shortest cut to Sandlewood, and it was
just as he was on the point of crossing the fringe of the wood, that he
saw about a hundred and fifty yards to his left, the whole of the
shooting party pick up the under-keepers, and proceed in the same
direction as himself.

There was not a sound among the trees. The air was still. The ground was
moist with the recent rain, and as he strode silently along one of the
narrow footpaths, he could not help from time to time glancing
half-shamefully at the sublimely careless party in the distance, on whom
he feared, through his high-handed action of the morning, some grief or
disgrace was almost bound to descend before nightfall.

He noticed that Leonetta, with her customary eagerness and high spirits,
kept a few paces ahead of the rest, and that she constantly looked about
in all directions, as if in search of something or somebody. He half
feared that she would catch sight of him, and he therefore repeatedly
stooped, or halted behind any opportune screen of brambles, until she
turned her head in another direction. These manoeuvres unfortunately
materially delayed his progress; while, owing to the fact that he was
compelled to keep his eye constantly on the other party, he could not
pick his way as nicely as he would have liked.

Then, all at once, just as he saw Stephen, who was apparently trying to
catch Leonetta up, dart ahead, there was a loud report, and the youth
fell forward as if killed.

Horrified, Lord Henry halted like one suddenly frozen to the ground. He
saw Leonetta rush forward and lean over the fallen youth. He then
observed her rise again just as the others came up.

Then another shot was fired, and this time, although apparently the
shooter had missed his aim, Lord Henry quickly seized the whole tragic
meaning of what had occurred.

He was nothing if not a quick thinker. It was clear to him now,
particularly in view of all he knew, that whoever had fired that first
shot had meant to hit Leonetta. It was also abundantly clear that the
second shot was a second attempt because the first had failed, and
concluding from the sound that the assailant would be somewhere between
him and the shooting party, he swerved without any further hesitation,
sharply to the left, and ran as hard as he could in the direction of the
group that had now gathered round Stephen. He dodged the trees and
undergrowth as well as he could, and tried as he proceeded to scan all
the intervening ground.

He knew Cleopatra was reported to be a good shot; he had little doubt,
therefore, as to who the assailant was; but as he tore through the
undergrowth he was too much appalled by the thought of the tragic
development he had just witnessed, to think with anything but
consternation on behalf of the creature who, during the past week, had
become so dear to him.

He was not a bow-shot from the shooting party, however, when all of a
sudden, at a distance of a couple of yards from him, crouching behind a
tangle of bushes, her face deathly white, and her hands struggling to
adjust the fire-arm she held in such a position as to do herself some
mortal injury, he espied Cleopatra,--Cleopatra now a dangerous
murderess.

He dashed madly towards her, stooped to snatch her weapon, a rook-rifle,
from her, and swinging it high in the air, flung it back among the
bushes and bracken he had just crossed.

"Are you mad!" he cried.

But there was no response. The girl had fallen back in a swoon, and a
twitching of her fingers showed that even now her half-conscious mind
was busy trying to find the trigger of the deadly rook-rifle.

A rapid examination revealed the fact that she was quite uninjured, and
concluding that she could be safely left where she was for a few
minutes, he ran off again in the direction of the wounded or murdered
man.

       *       *       *       *       *

As to what happened after that, the reader has already been informed.

Lord Henry, feeling too deeply relieved by the sight of Stephen's slight
wound, to be able altogether to conceal his triumphant joy, declared
that the whole thing had been an accident caused by his unpardonable
ignorance of a rook-rifle; and fortunately, owing to the excitement
occasioned by Stephen's wound and the dressing of it, the other members
of the party were not too critical in their acceptance of his story.

He dressed the wound with frantic speed, glancing constantly into the
woods to his left as he did so; muttered a few comforting words and
prayers for forgiveness to the boy on whose friendship he thought he
could count, and after having been assured that one of the keepers had
gone to the garage to order a car to be sent for the doctor, to the
complete astonishment of all present, he apologised and ran back into
the woods again.




CHAPTER XIX


Lord Henry could have flown amid the foliage of the trees, he could have
leaped from branch to branch,--aye, he could have pranced from the tip
of each leaf of bracken on his way,--so elated did he feel that now, at
least, the worst was over, the worst was known, and what remained to be
done was within the compass of his own powers, and free from any
treacherous element of luck or accident.

But his joy at the comparatively harmless outcome of Cleopatra's action
was nothing compared to his delight at that action itself, and even the
knowledge that he had read her character aright did not gratify him as
completely as the positive realisation that such characters as hers
still existed. It was chiefly this fact that dazzled him, and almost
choked him with a sensation of all too abundant ecstasy.

"One touch of Nature!" Yes, indeed; and in England of the twentieth
century it was terrifying in its intensity. Those tame people who talked
glibly of "Nature" and of "a return to Nature," as if this were
something they could contemplate with blissful equanimity, imagined
belike that Nature was all humming bees, smiling meadows, nodding
blooms and sporting butterflies, the Nature of the most successful
Victorian poets. It was their back-parlour misinterpretation and
belittlement of Nature that made these modern Philistines worship her.
Even the most sanguine could hardly suspect them of having the courage,
the good blood and the taste, to worship Nature as she really
was,--Nature with all her intoxicating joys, staggering immorality and
tragic passions.

Thus did Lord Henry meditate as he picked his way eagerly back to the
spot where Cleopatra lay, and for the first moment that day he began to
feel proud of his work at Brineweald.

When he reached the girl again she was just recovering consciousness,
and, as her frightened eyes began to take in the scene about her, and
recognised him, he noticed that she shuddered.

He knelt down and took her hand, but she shrank from him with a look of
such concentrated terror that he allowed her fingers to slip slowly
away.

"My poor dear girl!" he murmured, wiping the beads of perspiration from
her brow. "My poor brave Cleo!"

Her teeth chattered a little, and again the frightened look entered her
tired eyes, and she appeared to swoon once more.

He threw off his rain-coat and laid it on her, supported her head on his
knee, and waited thus for some time.

After a little while, however, it occurred to him that someone might
come across them if they remained so close to the house, and picking up
his charge, he penetrated further into the wood in the direction of the
morning's walk.

The movement seemed to restore Cleopatra a little, and laying her down
on a gentle slope, he succeeded in making her sip a little brandy from
his flask.

"You are breathing too quickly," he said. "You have just had a most
terrific shaking and your head is agitated. Try breathing more slowly
and deeply, as if nothing had happened; and soon your body will be
persuaded that nothing has happened."

He spoke sternly, but with just that modicum of tenderness which made
his words at once a command and an entreaty.

"Try it," he said again. "Breathe as if nothing had happened." He held
her hand, and gazed sympathetically into her face. "As a matter of
fact," he added, "so little has happened that it's not worth while being
agitated about it."

She looked about as if in search of someone.

"It's all right," he said, "no one can find us here. We are a long way
from where I first came across you."

She closed her eyes, and seemed to be trying to do as he directed, for
her nostrils dilated as if in an effort to breathe deeply. He wished she
would speak. He dreaded that her mind might be unhinged.

"When you are well enough to walk," he said, "we shall go to Sandlewood.
We'll have some tea or dinner there, and then you can get back to 'The
Fastness' after dark and go straight to bed. That will be excellent, and
nobody will be any the wiser."

Patiently he waited while her breathing became by degrees more normal,
and faint traces of returning colour began to fleck her cheeks. He still
held her hand, and now and again he would press it gently as an earnest
of his sympathy. It seemed a long and anxious wait, and as his will and
desire for her return to strength grew more intense, he hoped that she
was profiting from his silent co-operation with her struggle for
recovery.

Suddenly her eyes opened, and she looked anxiously round.

"It's all right," he repeated, "you are not where you were when I first
found you. We have moved since then."

"Where are the others?" she gasped, the terrified look returning to her
eyes.

"They went back to the house over an hour ago," he replied.

"Is he dead? Did I kill him?" she demanded defiantly.

"Dead? No! He's not even badly wounded," he answered.

"Where was he wounded?"

"In the shoulder,--a slight flesh wound."

Her face became slightly flushed, and he rose and faced her.

"Don't move unless you want to," he muttered. "But I should prefer to go
a little further away. I think it would be a good thing."

"Move away?--is any one after us?" she cried frantically.

"No, no. No one is after us. But I think you would be better alone with
me for a while anyway, and if we can walk a little further on, we shall
be off everybody's track."

She made an effort to rise. He assisted her, and leaning heavily on his
arm she walked with him slowly towards Sandlewood. It was after six.
Neither spoke until the village was in sight, and then he asked if she
knew of any place in it where they could dine. "Not that it really
matters," he added, "because we don't want anything very substantial."

She said that she supposed the inn would be the best place.

To the inn they therefore went, and while the innkeeper's wife prepared
tea for them and boiled a few eggs, they walked over to the village
church.

"Stephen has a flesh wound, no more, in the shoulder. Nobody else is
hurt," he said as they sauntered along. "I have dressed the wound, and a
doctor has been fetched. He was actually able to walk to the house. I
told them it was an accident, that I was not skilled in the use of
rook-rifles. Of course they believed me. Why shouldn't they? I want you
to promise not to show me up. It was all my fault, and I may surely be
allowed to come out of it with only an accident against my name?"

"I don't care who knows. I don't care what happens!" Cleopatra exclaimed
hoarsely. "You needn't imagine I want you to shield me. I did it on
purpose, and they must know I did it on purpose."

Lord Henry frowned. "Yes, quite so," he continued. "You have suffered so
much of late that you disbelieve in anything but unhappiness. You feel
it must be interminable. It was all my fault. You fancy that you are
alone, with a bitter hostile world arrayed against you. And since the
world is your enemy, what do you care what the enemy thinks of you? Very
natural too! That is what you feel. If only, if only, Leonetta had not
been so slow in walking home this morning! It was hard luck on me that
you should have been driven to this, because I was aiming at something
so very different. However, it seems even harder luck that you should
imagine that you were driven to it by me. But fancy! only a flesh wound
in the shoulder, and it's all over! God! how thankful I am. And they
must believe it was my accident. For did I not come to do you good, and
had I not succeeded?"

"Better have left me alone," exclaimed the girl with a bitter smile. "I
wish I could go away. I want to leave this hateful place!"

"Wherever you go, whatever you do, understand," said Lord Henry, "I am
going to stick close to you. So don't imagine you can drive me away."

She stopped a moment. They had reached the churchyard, and she extended
an arm to the nearest tree to steady herself.

"Why don't you leave me?" she demanded. "Can't you see that I have been
tormented enough? I hate everything and everybody! I want to forget; I
want to be alone."

Lord Henry was silent and led the way back to the inn.

"You are doing what hundreds have done before you," he observed after a
while, "and always with disastrous results. You are condemning a man
unheard. Until this morning I was your friend, your most useful ally
here. You knew it, you felt it. I did everything in my power to bring
about a change in the balance of advantages, which was all in your
favour. You saw the proof of this. You drew strength from the very
change I created. You know you did; you cannot deny it. I worked with
zeal and with effect. God! if I worked with the same zeal for all my
patients I should be dead in a fortnight."

"Well?" she cried.

"Then you were told something by third parties,--something that seemed
to destroy in an instant all the careful work of my three days here. You
believed that there was only one interpretation of this thing, and that
was that my purpose all along had been so hazy and my nature so
capricious and irresponsible that I had suddenly resolved to reverse
the whole of the elaborate machinery which I had set in motion to
re-establish your health and spirits;--and what for?--in order, if you
please, to win the flattering smile of a mere child! Do you imagine that
even my love for your wonderful mother would ever have allowed me to
right-about-wheel all of a sudden in that ridiculous fashion? Come,
Cleopatra, be reasonable."

She averted her gaze, and her eyes began to well with tears.

"No, you have known the thing to happen before, and therefore you were
the more readily convinced that it had happened again. You had no faith
because your faith had been cruelly broken. But, believe me, although I
did this action this morning chiefly on your account and Leonetta's, and
partly also on account of a great friend of mine whom you do not yet
know, I swear I should never have undertaken it if I had dreamt for an
instant that it was going to cost you as much as a single tear."

The girl put her handkerchief to her eyes. "I'm afraid I don't
understand," she said. "It all seems so mysterious. I only know that,
one after another, you all seem to go the same way."

Lord Henry sighed. "Come," he said, offering her his arm again; "let me
make myself clear to you."

But she was too convulsed with sobs to move. The situation was certainly
difficult.

He waited, and looked for a while away from her.

"Besides," she cried at last, "you don't really know what I wanted to
do, otherwise--otherwise--Oh! it's too dreadful!"

He swung round. "I know everything," he rejoined.

"You can't really want to keep me beside you then."

He smiled sadly. "And why not, in all conscience!"

She wiped her eyes quickly and frowned darkly at him.

"Lord Henry, are you fooling me?" she ejaculated. "Don't you know that a
moment ago I was intent only on one thing, and that was----"

She choked and could go no further.

He walked up to her and laid a hand on her arm. "I tell you I know
everything," he repeated.

"You pretend that you know," she sneered.

He smiled and bowed his head. "If you mean," he suggested, "that two
hours ago you were firing from that ambush with the definite intention
of doing Leonetta some mortal injury, I need hardly say----"

"Yes," she said fiercely, "I do mean that."

"Of course I knew that," he observed. "Don't imagine I had any doubt
about that. When I first came up to you I was convinced of it. What else
could you have been doing?"

She scrutinised him intently. "Well, then?" she stammered.

"If only you will be good enough to walk back to the inn with me," he
said, again offering her his arm, "I'll explain everything to you."

"All right, walk on!" she said, declining his proffered assistance.

And then, as they walked, he began to unfold to her his reasons for his
behaviour with Leonetta in the woods that morning. He explained how he
had reckoned that he would be back in time to tell her first, and that
had it not been for the fury of Denis's indignation, he would certainly
have succeeded.

They reached the inn and repaired to the bar parlour, and over the
frugal meal he continued his explanation. She listened intently, raised
an objection from time to time, which he deftly parried, and thus
gradually the whole story was made plain to her. She revived visibly
under the effects of the refreshment, and the precise and convincing
manner of his narrative; and when at last the complete chain of
consequence had been revealed to her, he left her very much recovered
while he went in search of some vehicle to convey them back to "The
Fastness."

In about twenty minutes he returned with a broken-down old brougham--the
only vehicle the village possessed,--and in a moment they were rattling
away slowly in the direction of Brineweald.

"Then what made you look for me with such anxiety?" she enquired, once
they were well on their way. "Why did you guess so positively that
something tragic would happen? Why didn't you simply assume that my
fainting fits had returned?"

He caught her hand in his.

"My dear Cleo," he replied, "perhaps I am disgustingly arrogant, perhaps
I am quite unfit for decent society, but it occurred to me that your
fainting fits had been, not the outcome of thwarted passion, but the
result of mortified vanity. You never loved Denis. I felt somehow that
in this instance, not your vanity alone, but your deepest passions were
involved, and that when you would act from thwarted passion, either
against yourself, against me, or against Leonetta, you would proceed to
violence. Was I wrong? Was I hopelessly vain and foolish to imagine that
in this instance, because I was concerned and not Denis, therefore
something more tragic was to be expected?"

She looked away and a smile began to dawn on her tortured features.

"What about Baby?" she demanded after a while. "Did you consider her
feelings?"

"Did I consider her feelings? How can you ask me that, seeing that I was
leaving no stone unturned to save her from the toils of an
arch-flappist?"

She almost laughed.

"But didn't you go unnecessarily far with the poor kid?"

"Only as far as I was obliged to go to effect my purpose. But do you
suppose I am only the second man with whom she has flirted heavily? Do
you suppose I am even the sixth? I took care that she should realise
that it was only a rag. She is deep and she is passionate. She knows
what a good rag is. And she will behave very differently, I can assure
you, when she meets the man with whom she feels she cannot play without
burning her pretty fingers. She won't accept his first overtures so
readily, believe me. She will be too terrified, as all decent women are
when they are truly and deeply moved. She won't even yield so very
quickly to his repeated overtures. She will realise that the affair is
too deep, too committing, too final for that."

"But didn't you kiss her?" Cleopatra enquired.

"Of course I did," replied Lord Henry, chuckling quite heartily now.
"But is not a man entitled to kiss his future sister-in-law?"

Two tears rolled slowly down her face, and she fumbled hurriedly for her
handkerchief.

"Come, come, my beloved Cleo," he exclaimed, taking her into his arms,
"allow me to say that. Allow me to regard that kiss in that light. It
makes it so perfectly innocent. Didn't you feel that that is what I was
driving at? Oh, how easily I could have prevented all this if only
Leonetta hadn't dragged so on the way home!"

And then, as they approached the outskirts of Brineweald, they quickly
decided on their plan of action. It was settled that only Mrs.
Delarayne, Leonetta, and Stephen should ever know the truth about the
accident, and that, even so, Leonetta should not be told until she was
sensible enough to see how inevitable and how "natural" it was.
Meanwhile, everyone was to believe that Lord Henry had made a fool of
himself,--a fact which, as both he and Cleopatra knew, would afford
infinite satisfaction to Miss Mallowcoid, Denis, and the baronet.

       *       *       *       *       *

Two months later, at about half-past eleven on a drizzly October
morning, there was a small and fashionable-looking crowd assembled near
the edge of one of the quays at the East India docks, and as the huge
Oriental liner moved slowly out into the Thames, five people on its
upper deck waved frantically towards this group. They were Cleopatra,
Lord Henry, the Tribes, and young Stephen Fearwell.

Again and again Lord Henry waved his hat, and again and again, in the
interval of putting it to her eyes, Mrs. Delarayne waved her tiny lace
handkerchief back at him.

He noticed that the brave woman was surviving wonderfully the strain of
losing for a while the beloved son that she had at last found; but as he
turned to call Cleopatra's attention to this, he found that he was
obliged to suppress the intended remark for fear of making an ass of
himself.

The gigantic steamer grew smaller and smaller, the group on the quay
still waved and waved, and then, at last, nothing more could be seen of
the travellers.

"Is it a trying journey to China?" Leonetta asked of Aubrey St. Maur,
jerking her arm which was enlocked in his, as they turned away from the
sight of the oily harbour water.

"Hush!" said St. Maur, glancing ominously at Mrs. Delarayne, who was
staggering along between Sir Joseph and Agatha Fearwell's father. "Poor
Peachy seems very much upset, doesn't she?"

"Yes, you see," Leonetta replied, "Henry always was her star turn."




_VISITORS BY NIGHT_[2]


    _At that deep hour 'twixt midnight and the dawn,
       When silence and the darkness strive in vain
     For mastery, and Morpheus hath withdrawn
       His friendly ward, not to return again;
     Lo! Fancy's two-winged doorway wide doth yawn
       And uninvited guests arrive amain.
     A fateful suite they hover into sight--
     They are the soul's dread visitors by night._

    _First come brave Resolutions unfulfilled;
       With each his spouse, Ambition unattained.
     They have the furtive look of conscience skilled
       In palliating failures unexplained.
     Their lips are meek with pride that hath been killed
       And confidence that hath in sickness waned.
     Oh, steel thy heart, thou hapless, sleepless wight,
     Against these cheerless visitors by night._

    _Then come thy throng of petty sins and great,
       Their sordid secrets branded on their brow.
     Still apprehensive of their darksome fate
       And craving safe concealment as they bow.
     What faithfulness they have to come so late
       When thou hadst half-forgotten them by now.
     Oh, for a virtue great enough to affright
     This ugly brood of visitors by night._

    _But these are not the worst; there cometh last
       A green-clad lady, viperish and ill.
     Her bitter lips she biteth and right fast
       She grappleth with what spirit thou hast still.
     Her poisoned words transfix thee till aghast
       Thou marvellest such aching doth not kill.
     Her name is Jealousy, thou wretched wight;
     The cruellest of visitors by night._

    _Then Fancy's two-winged doorway slow doth close.
       The birds begin to twitter and to sing.
     All nature waketh and on pointed toes
       Young truant Morpheus stealeth gently in.
     Oh, happiness of reinstalled repose,
       And balsam for thy cold and sweated skin!
     'Twas worse than all the nightmares, blessed wight;
     This vigil with these visitors by night._

[Footnote 2: First published in _The New Age_, October 23, 1919.]