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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Too Old for Dolls, by Anthony Mario Ludovici
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Too Old for Dolls
+       A Novel
+
+
+Author: Anthony Mario Ludovici
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 21, 2009  [eBook #28378]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOO OLD FOR DOLLS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Sankar Viswanathan, Suzanne Shell, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+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 glaces 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 anaemic, 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 debutante.
+
+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 aeons, 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 mediaeval 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 minutiae 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 "mediaeval
+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 _idee 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 _outre_ refinement, which was calculated to force his
+friends to certain inevitable conclusions concerning both his means and
+the extent of his aesthetic 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 Cafe 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 role 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 _cantiniere_
+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
+role 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 Epouseuses 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 Epouseuses 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 Epouseuses 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 role 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 role 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 role 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 _eclair_ 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 mediaeval
+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
+_phasianidae_, 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 anaemic,
+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 _tete-a-tete_.
+
+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 entree, 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.]
+
+
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