Despite Sir Joseph's very careful reservations in regard to the
increase, which unsolicited he had thought fit to make in his chief
secretary's salary, Denis, who was perfectly well aware of his own
efficiency, was inclined rather to discount every feature of his
master's generous behaviour, except the covert tribute which he believed
it was intended to make to his invaluable services. He knew the business
man's instinctive reluctance to reveal his full appreciation of a
subordinate's worth, and felt he must allow for this. But, on the other
hand, in view of Sir Joseph's intimate relations with the Delarayne
household, he was unable altogether to dispel a certain lurking anxiety
concerning the baronet's very precise allusions to the question of
marriage, which it was hard to believe could have been altogether
gratuitous. This thought was disquieting.
Denis Malster, without being exactly an incurable philanderer, was
nevertheless insufficiently commonplace to contemplate marriage, in the
Pauline sense, as a necessity. He was much more disposed, at least for
the present, to regard it merely as a piquant possibility, towards which
his very attitude of indecision lent him an extra weapon of power in
his relations with the other sex.
His life, hitherto, had been enjoyable, he thought, simply because it
had been an uninterrupted preparation for marriage without the dull
certainty of a definite conclusion. To excite interest in the other sex
and envy in his own had, ever since he had been a boy of eighteen,
constituted the breath of his nostrils, the one spring from which he
drew his love of life and his desire to live. Immaculate in his dress,
adequately cultivated and intellectual in his speech, and carefully
punctilious in the adoption of such amateur pursuits as would be likely
to give him the stamp of artistic connoisseurship, he had until now
employed his ample income principally in furnishing his extensive
wardrobe, in collecting old books and prints, and in giving his chambers
that appearance of _outre_ refinement, which was calculated to force his
friends to certain inevitable conclusions concerning both his means and
the extent of his aesthetic development.
In the circumstances, therefore, it was difficult for him to regard the
addition to his income, which Sir Joseph had suddenly thought fit to
make, as anything more than a fresh means of indulging his various whims
to an even greater degree than he had indulged them heretofore,--those
whims which had by now become almost driving passions to the exclusion
of all else;--and he was certainly not in the least disposed to take
Sir Joseph at his word, and to embark upon that undertaking which he
knew would put an abrupt end to all the careless dalliance in which his
clothes, his fastidious speech, and his parade of artistic
discrimination played so effective a part.
Such were the thoughts that occupied his mind as he made his way from
Lombard Street to his rooms in Essex Court; and by the time he had
dressed for dinner and was waiting for a cab in the Strand, a look of
fixed determination had settled on his face which was indicative of the
firm resolve he had made.
In any case Sir Joseph could not expect him to marry immediately. For a
while yet, therefore, he would continue to enjoy the life so full of
secret triumphs which he had succeeded in leading ever since he had
entered the house of Bullion & Bullion, and from this day with the
additional pleasures that his increased income would allow. Had he not
been told by Mrs. Delarayne herself that a man should not marry until
flappers had ceased to turn round to get a second look at him in the
street? And was there not something profoundly wise in this advice,
although it had been pronounced in one of the old lady's most flippant
moods? A smile of complacent well-being spread slowly over his features
as he recalled this remark, and the last endorsement was mentally
affixed to his private plans.
What would Cleopatra Delarayne do? Charitably, almost chivalrously, he
imagined, he gave her a thought. Had he led her to hope? Undoubtedly he
had. But then he had not resolved never to marry; he had merely
determined to postpone the step _sine die_. Perhaps in a year or two he
would come to a definite understanding with Cleopatra. After all, she
was only twenty-five. She was an attractive girl, and she would be
wealthy. He felt that marriage with her would not be an uninviting
conclusion to another year or two of his present delightful existence.
Thus he satisfied his conscience and gratified his deepest wishes into
the bargain.
He dined alone at the Cafe Royal. It was a sultry evening, and London
was still stifling after a sweltering day. One had the feeling that the
roofs and masonry of the buildings all about were still burning, as
probably they were, with the heat of the sun that had been pouring down
upon them all day; and the big city seemed to breathe its hot dust into
the face of its inhabitants.
Having nothing better to do, he thought how pleasant it would be to
finish the day in Mrs. Delarayne's cool garden in Kensington, and
thither he betook himself after his meal, devoutly hoping that they
would be at home.
Cleopatra had evidently been half expecting him, for she appeared in the
drawing-room on the heels of the maid who had ushered him in, and gave
him a friendly welcome. Mrs. Delarayne had ensconced herself upstairs
and did not wish to be disturbed, and at that moment her penetrating
voice could be heard conducting what appeared to be a most lively and
acrimonious debate with someone unknown across the telephone. So on
Denis's suggestion they went into the garden and installed themselves
there in Cleopatra's favourite bower.
"Rather late for the Warrior to be upbraiding a tradesman," Denis
observed. "I wonder what she can be doing."
He had nicknamed Mrs. Delarayne "the Warrior" himself. He was sensitive
enough to apprehend the strong strain of courage in her character; he
had on several occasions been impressed by the tenacious boldness of her
claims to youth and by the energy she displayed in keeping up the
difficult part,--frequently entailing exertions out of all proportion to
her bodily vigour;--so he had nicknamed her "the Warrior." But this
sobriquet was used only when he and Cleopatra were alone together.
"The poor Warrior is peevish anyhow, you see," Cleopatra explained.
"Baby comes home to-morrow, and if there's anything that annoys mother
to exasperation, it is to have to cluck and fuss round her chick like an
old hen. She loathes it, and Baby always makes her feel she must do it."
Denis pretended to be interested only in a casual way. "What sort of a
girl is--Baby?" he asked. "Is she like you?"
"I suppose she is like me to the same extent that I am like the
Warrior," the girl replied. "But she's most like the Warrior herself.
Imagine my mother at the age of seventeen and you know my sister. Surely
you have seen that old photograph of the Warrior as a girl in the
drawing-room? It is simply Baby over again,--or rather _vice versa_."
"I must look at it," said Denis thoughtfully.
"In fact they are so much alike," Cleopatra proceeded, "that they know
each other inside out, and annoy each other accordingly."
"They don't get on well then?" he enquired.
"Oh, yes, but Baby's a little trying at times. You see, she will forget
for instance that we call mother Edith, and have done ever since father
died; and she will suddenly shout Mother! out loud on crowded railway
platforms, or at the Academy, or worse still at garden parties, which
always gives the Warrior one of those nervous attacks for which she has
to go to Lord Henry."
Denis started almost imperceptibly at the mention of Lord Henry's name,
and turned an interested face towards the girl. "Do you know Lord
Henry?" he asked.
"No, I don't. There are some men the Warrior knows whom she never
introduces to me. I feel as if I knew Lord Henry very well indeed, but I
have never met him."
"You haven't lost much," Denis snapped.
"I beg your pardon?" Cleopatra exclaimed, smiling kindly but
deprecatingly, and arching her neck a little, as she scented the
injustice behind his remark.
"He dresses abominably," Denis pursued, "and from what I can gather is
benighted enough to believe in our beheaded sovereign Charles I."
"He must be very able though," the girl objected. "It isn't often, is
it, that our aristocracy distinguish themselves? And d'you know that he
is a Fellow of the Royal Society entirely on the strength of his
original research into the subject of modern nervous disorders?"
Denis pouted and smiled with an ostentatious show of incredulity. "He's
the son of the Marquis of Firle, remember!"
"Oh, but I don't believe that's got anything to do with it--honestly!"
she retorted.
Cleopatra knew her mother as well as any daughter has ever known her
parent; she could have compiled a catalogue of Mrs. Delarayne's foibles
more exhaustive and elaborate than any that Mrs. Delarayne's worst
enemies could have produced; but, on the other hand, she had so often
found her mother a safe guide where her fellow creatures were concerned,
and had thus acquired so deep a faith in her mother's judgment, that it
was hard for her to believe that in the matter of Lord Henry the Warrior
could be mistaken.
She regarded her companion for some moments in silence. He was cutting a
cigar, and failed to notice that she was observing him.
Certainly he was very sleek and smart, and showed that perfect
efficiency in all he did which betokens general ability. What was it
then that gave her a little pang of doubt whenever she was moved by an
impulse to look up to him? His voice, it is true, was thin and a trifle
high-pitched,--always a bad sign in a man,--but she would have
overlooked all his shortcomings if only her craving to revere where she
loved had been sufficiently gratified. He was beyond all question the
best type of man who had hitherto paid her attention. Others, perhaps,
might have been more manly; but then they had been clumsy, heavy, and
puerile, and had, above all, lacked that air of complete efficiency
which was perhaps Denis's greatest asset.
She thought herself foolish for expecting too much from life, and
without any effort turned a kindly smiling face to her visitor.
"The Warrior!" he ejaculated suddenly, blowing sharp strong puffs from
his cigar; and he was either annoyed or made a good pretence of it.
Yes, there, indeed, was Mrs. Delarayne, stalking majestically up the
garden, and from the way she glanced rapidly from side to side, and
grabbed at her frock, it was plain that she was in none too pleasant a
mood.
Denis rose when she was about four yards from them.
She glanced quickly at Cleopatra, seemed to notice the perfect serenity
of both young people with marked dissatisfaction, rapidly recorded the
fact that her daughter's hair was utterly undisturbed, and smiled
grimly. "Evidently things have taken their usual course," she mused.
"He had not even attempted to kiss her!"
"Don't you think you two people are rather silly to sit out here doing
nothing?" she demanded irascibly.
"It's so delightfully cool," Denis protested.
"Yes, too cool!" snapped the old lady with a deliberate glance at her
daughter, which was intended to convey the full meaning of her words.
Cleopatra moved impatiently. Her mother always made her feel so
miserably defective, and this was hard to forgive.
Mrs. Delarayne settled herself elegantly in a wicker chair, took a
cigarette from a case, and snapped the case to with a decisive click.
She looked hot and a little tired, and as Denis proffered her a light he
noticed the beads of perspiration amid the powder round her eyes.
"I've had the most tiresome evening imaginable," she croaked.
"I thought so," said her daughter. "We heard you."
"Really men are most ridiculous cowards," she cried, frowning hard at
Denis. "There's Sir Joseph, for instance. He's failed ignominiously with
Lord Henry; has been unable to induce him to give up his absurd mission
to China, and instead of coming here to tell me all about it, he keeps
me thirty-five minutes brawling at him over the 'phone in this heat,
simply because he daren't face me!"
Denis stretched out his legs before him and clasped his hands at the
back of his head. This was a signal, well known to the women, that a
long analytical speech was to follow, and Mrs. Delarayne looked wearily
away, as if to imply before the start that she was not in the least
interested.
"It's all organisation nowadays," Denis began. "If you can organise your
machinery with the help of good subordinates, the trick is done. And
since Sir Joseph simply exudes lubricants, everything works smoothly and
successfully. He----"
"Don't talk of exuding lubricants in this weather, please!" Mrs.
Delarayne interrupted. "I suffer from the heat almost as badly as
butter."
It was becoming clear to Cleopatra that her mother was for some reason
intent on chastising their visitor, and she watched the interesting woman
before her with her filial feeling in almost complete abeyance. The
children of remarkable parents frequently do this after they have turned a
certain age. It is not disrespect, but merely absent-mindedness.
It was almost dark now, and Denis noticed Mrs. Delarayne's fine profile
outlined against the lighted rooms of the house. There was a sadness
delineated on her handsome, aristocratic face, which, as he had observed
before, was to be seen only when her features were quite still. Could
this apparently gay widow still be mourning her husband? Denis was
sufficiently romantic and ill-informed to imagine this just possible.
"So the interview between Sir Joseph and Lord Henry was a failure?" he
enquired trying to be sympathetic.
"Yes, of course," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined, flinging her cigarette into
the bushes at her side. "And I do so hate the idea of going out to
China."
Cleopatra laughed. "But, Edith, surely you don't really mean that you'll
go to China if Lord Henry goes?"
Denis glanced quickly at Cleopatra and in his eyes she read the
supercilious message: "People of _our_ generation could not be so
foolish."
"You don't flatter yourself, Cleo, I hope," Mrs. Delarayne retorted
icily, "that I say these things to amuse you and Denis, do you?"
Cleopatra signified by a glance directed at Denis that she did not like
the message in his eyes, and regretting the laugh with which she had
opened her last remark, she turned conciliatingly to her mother.
"I'd go with you, Edith dear, if you wanted me to," she said.
For the first time since he had made their acquaintance Denis began to
have the shadow of an understanding of the depth of these two women's
attachment to each other, and he bowed his head.
"Thank you, Cleo," Mrs. Delarayne replied after satisfying herself that
there was not a trace of insincerity either in the voice or features of
her daughter. "We'll see."
She rose, smoothed down the front of her frock with a few rapid
gestures, and turned to the younger people.
"Come on!" she said. "You and I cannot afford to lose our beauty sleep,
Cleo. Two hours before midnight,--you know the time, and it's now
half-past nine."
Evidently Mrs. Delarayne intended to be rude to Denis. Sir Joseph had
told her something across the telephone, and she had expected a result
which had not occurred.
* * * * *
The following morning after breakfast Mrs. Delarayne as usual retired to
the bureau in the library where every day she devoted at least thirty
minutes to her housekeeping duties.
Silently on this occasion Cleopatra followed in her wake, and pretending
to be in search of a book, lingered in her mother's company longer than
was her wont after the morning meal. Book after book was taken down from
the shelves, perfunctorily examined and returned to its place. Once or
twice the girl looked towards her mother, possibly in the hope that the
elder woman would provide the opening to the subject that was uppermost
in both their minds. At last Cleopatra spoke.
"Baby comes home to-day," she said, in a voice strained to appear
cheerful.
Mrs. Delarayne looked up from a tradesman's book. "Yes," she sighed
wearily. "One of Sir Joseph's cars is coming to fetch us at half-past
two. The train reaches King's Cross at three. Will you come?"
"Of course,--rather!" Cleopatra exclaimed, taking down another book and
examining it cursorily.
There was silence again, and Cleopatra could be heard running quickly
through the pages of the volume she held.
"What is Baby going to do?" she asked after a while.
"Don't ask me!" exclaimed the mother.
"Haven't you any plans?" the daughter enquired with studied
indifference, her eyes wandering vacantly over the letter-press before
them.
"Plans--what plans?" ejaculated the old lady. "I suppose the poor child
will have to put up with us now. You don't suppose we can send her
gadding about the Continent again?"
"I didn't dream of any such thing!" Cleopatra protested a little
guiltily.
"No, I promised her that she should come home for good after the School
of Domesticity, and she expects it. You saw what she said in her last
letter."
"Naturally," Cleopatra added, closing her book and replacing it
hurriedly on the shelves.
"We'll have to put up with it--that's all, my dear. I hope she won't be
too trying. But you must really help me a little by taking her off my
hands, particularly on my Bridge and 'Inner Light' days."
Cleopatra cast a glance full of meaning at her mother, and quietly left
the room. She had heard all she wanted to hear.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, the subject of this conversation, ensconced comfortably in
the corner of a first-class carriage, was speeding rapidly towards
London.
Looking remarkably at her ease in a smart tailor-made frock of navy
serge, silk stockings, suede shoes, and a perfect summer hat trimmed
with bright cherries as red as her lips, she sat amid a farraginous
medley of newspapers, small parcels, and shiny leather traps, and
presented an attractive picture of a flourishing schoolgirl of
seventeen,--careless, mischievous, and keenly, though discreetly,
interested in everything about her;--but, perhaps a little too healthy,
and certainly too beautiful, to be quite typical either of the class or
of the kind of school from which she hailed.
Her large dark eyes, veiled by unusually long lashes, looked sharply at
you and then quickly turned away, with that air of mystery and secrecy,
and love of secrets at all costs--even mock secrets--peculiar to the
young virgin of all climes. Occasionally in glancing away they would
half close in a thoughtful smile, which, to the uninitiated, unaware of
the irrepressible spirits of their owner, was as unaccountable as it was
provoking.
There was an air of childhood still clinging, as if from habit alone, to
the outward insignia of maturity, in this mercurial, magnetic, and
undaunted young person; and in her malicious elfish eyes could be read
the solemn determination to force every possible claim that her double
advantage, as child and adult, could, according to the occasion, uphold.
Her thick dark hair did not hang down her back in the rich spiral curl
which is now becoming so common among schoolgirls; for that it was too
plentiful, too troublesomely luxuriant. It hung like heavy bronze in a
thick stiff plait--a badge both of her robust youth and the redundant
richness of her blood,--and at its extremity it was tied with a broad
ribbon of black silk. Beneath her hat, bold festoons of hair reached
down almost to her eyebrows, and to these portions of her coiffure she
constantly applied her soft shapely sun-tanned fingers, as if to
reassure herself that they were keeping their proper position.
The roguish expression of her face was partly due to pure health and
partly to wanton spirits, and her features possessed that exceptional
animation which, even in the simple process of eating a fondant,
produced the impression of extreme mobility.
Having long previously examined her fellow-passengers and judged them
uninteresting, she divided her attention between the fleeting landscape
at her side, a box of fruit creams, which she was consuming with grave
perseverance, and the contents of a pocket-portfolio, which she
appeared to be slowly sorting and weeding out. To everything she did,
however, to each one of her movements, she had the air of imparting so
much mysteriousness, so much elaborate secrecy, that she soon found
herself the object of the united attention of all her companions. And
occasionally when her fresh full lips parted in a smile at the things
she read, the old gentleman opposite her had to turn also to the
fleeting landscape as a prophylactic against the infection of her high
spirits.
She gave the impression of that aggressive vitality with which Nature
seems deliberately to equip her more favoured female children at this
age, as if to challenge the other sex to a definite attitude
immediately. A quivering freshness--the "bloom" of the poets--gave a
soft shimmer to her skin of which the powder of later years is such a
palpably poor travesty; her limbs were nicely rounded and not too
fragile; her teeth, like Cleopatra's, were perfect, and although she was
a trifle smaller than her sister, she was broad across the shoulders,
and well developed.
Leonetta, as we have already seen, knew that she was attractive; but she
did not know this fact as surely and unmistakably as--say, a philosopher
looking at her did. She probably knew that she was sunburnt, for
instance; but she was not aware of the depth which the dark natural
virginal pigmentation of her neck, eyes, and knuckles, lent to the warm
tanning of her skin. She did not know how prone the philosopher is to
associate the combination of these two rich colourings with the wicked,
dusky denizens of a tropical jungle--those creatures whose blood he
suspects of being something deeper than red, who really look as if they
were made from the earth and were going back to it, and who have nothing
of that translucent pallor suggestive of heaven-sent and heaven-destined
attributes.
She probably knew her dark eyes were fine and that their lashes were
long; but she would have been surprised and perhaps even a little hurt
if she had been told that their most striking feature was that, to every
man, modest and shrewd enough to divine all that they could exact, they
were terrifying. She knew her teeth were faultless; but she did not even
suspect the thrill of pained joy that went through the philosopher's
frame when he saw the life-hunger they revealed, and, what was more, the
full deep bite and fast hold they would take of Life's entrails. A young
girl's canines are self-revelatory in this respect. Let them be big and
prominent, as Leonetta's were, and the fastness of her hold on Life,
once she has bitten, promises to break all records. The sensitive
philosopher has little patience with your fair delicate misses with
small mouse-like canines. There are too many of them to begin with, and
they are so instinctively ladylike.
Perhaps the most amusing thing in this world is to watch the antics of
a large-canined virgin _de bonne famille_ who is trying to be a
lady,--by "lady" is here meant someone who, among other parlour tricks,
can perform the feat of "controlling" her feelings,--who has, that is to
say, on the one hand "control" and on the other hand "feelings," and
whose feelings are weaker than her control.
Leonetta's highly pigmented and sunburnt fingers suddenly ceased their
twofold activity with the box of fondants and the pocket-portfolio of
secret papers, and held a letter long and steadily before her eyes.
Again the old gentleman opposite turned to the landscape of fields on
his right, and his loose lips worked ominously. The fixity of those keen
eyes with their tell-tale slight inward squint, as she studied the
letter, proved too much for him, particularly when she began to smile;
and his glance wandered desperately to the country he was traversing, in
the cool, pallid British greenness of which he found relief.
Evidently the letter was a piece of life, for Leonetta was now in deadly
earnest, pinching her beautiful tawny neck thoughtfully here and there
with her free hand, as she read, and breathing deeply. Her glance
travelled rapidly, too, over certain passages, and would then stop dead,
sometimes in order to allow a smile to dawn, sometimes to wander a
moment to frown at the country-side. Evidently certain portions of the
letter were quite uninteresting, or else she knew them by heart.
The letter she read was as follows:
"My own dearest Leo,
"Oh, how I miss you already! But I shan't be the _only_ one!
That's _some_ comfort. Think of church now without your
dreadful remarks about all the still more dreadful people. I
know one or two who are not going to church any more now.
Don't you feel ashamed of yourself? Don't you ever feel
ashamed of yourself? And the river on Wednesdays, and the
_park_ on Saturday afternoons! The place will be dead. It
will be a vast waste. You told me to make up to Dorothy
Garforth. But she's not _you_. She'll never have the pluck
to talk to strange young men about their motor bikes or
their horses and things. You _were_ a wonder! Still my own
dear Leo, you promised to invite me up to London to meet
your people, didn't you, and don't you dare to forget. I
shall pine away here if you do.
"I must tell you something that happened last night. Well, I
met Charlie as I was coming home from saying good-bye to
you. He was desolate. You really have been a little cruel.
He said you gave him back his match-box and gold pencil, and
that that meant you did not want anything more to do with
him. He said he had been waiting behind the usual shrubbery
in the park for two hours, for a long last good-bye and that
you never turned up. I know what you mean about him, that he
isn't smart and clean and all that, but he is rather nice
all the same. Almost the best we knew. I think the hair on
his hands, as you pointed out, made up for a heap of other
shortcomings in him. But I know what you mean. He's a little
rough and there's an end of it. I thought of telling him to
write to you; but then it struck me you would not like him
to. He said you were a flirt, and that you would only have
a rich man. I said it wasn't that a bit, that he had quite
misunderstood you. I couldn't tell him the truth, could
I?--that he wasn't altogether '_toothsome_,' as you call it.
He said he had seen us talking to that motor-cyclist fellow
in the park last Saturday, and that proved it. I said it
proved nothing, because we did not know then that he was one
of the wealthiest boys in the county. However he seemed very
bitter.
"Did you really give him so much encouragement? Of course
men _do_ think it a lot if you let them kiss you. Aren't
they stupid? They can't understand that even if one does not
love them overmuch one wants to know what it's like. And you
_did_ like pretending you were deeply in love, didn't you
now?--all the time? I tell you who'll be glad you've gone,
Alice Dewlap. She was sweet on Charlie long before you met
him, because Kitty told me so.
"Oh, Leo, you were a wicked creature, a regular godsend!
What shall we do without you! _Do_ ask me to come soon.
That's cool, isn't it? Asking for an invitation. But you
know what I mean. Think of me in church next Sunday. Good
Lord deliver us! Tell me what to say to Charlie if he
bothers me about you again. And don't forget to tell me all
that happens in London. Describe all the men you meet
minutely,--you know to the smallest detail as you used to
here. You taught me to notice heaps of things I should never
have thought of.
"Good-bye my dearest treasure-trove, with heaps of love and
kisses.
"Yours for ever and ever,
"Nessy."
The old gentleman lost sight of Leonetta during the lunch interval; but
when she returned from the restaurant car, slightly flushed, and her
eyelids lazily drooping, he concluded that she had probably partaken
heartily of the good fare provided, more particularly as a few stray
crumbs still clung about the corners of her lips, betraying to his
experienced eye the unconscious eagerness which healthy people
habitually show over their meals. Wisely he did not infer from these
evidences of a youthful and unimpaired appetite that she was slovenly in
her table manners, because the unmistakable gentleness of her upbringing
precluded any such possibility. The observation merely confirmed his
general impression of her, and left him pondering over the relationship
of daintiness to health.
Drowsily the girl re-opened the letter which she had been perusing
before the luncheon hour, and re-read it once or twice; then dropping it
listlessly upon her lap, she turned upon her fellow-passengers a look of
such guileless interest that they might have been excused had they been
moved by that compassion, so frequently unwarranted, for innocence on
the threshold of Life's great adventure.
The letter she held had been brought to her that morning by Vanessa's
maid. Leonetta and Vanessa had made friends the moment they first met,
and when Vanessa, duly qualified, had left the School of Domesticity,
about six months after Leonetta's arrival there, they had continued to
see each other outside its walls. There was a difference of only a year
in their ages, Vanessa being the elder; but the younger girl with her
greater keenness of vision, more exuberant health and spirits, and more
resolute unscrupulosity, had so carried the heart of the other by storm
that it was Vanessa, the provincial termagant, who looked up to and
worshipped her sister dare-devil of the Metropolis, and who watched her
for her every cue.
The train was nearing London; already the coquettish veil of smoke with
which the "hub of the Universe" conceals the full horror of her ugliness
from the eyes of critics, gave the summer sky a murky yellow tinge.
Leonetta yawned, glanced across the vast city which she hoped would
hence-forward be her home, and then suddenly recollecting that her
mother and sister would probably be at King's Cross to meet her, quickly
folded the letter that was lying on her lap and relegated it to one of
the interstices of her pocket-portfolio.