"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."