A day or two later,--that is to say on the Saturday before Sir Joseph's
evening At Home in honour of Leonetta's homecoming,--Mrs. Delarayne
herself gave a dinner party, to which a few of her more intimate friends
were invited. Sir Joseph, of course, was among the guests, as were also
Denis and Guy Tyrrell. For some reason, into which she made no effort to
enquire, however, Mrs. Delarayne did not ask Lord Henry.
On the afternoon of the day in question, Leonetta, after her tea,
ensconced herself in the library and wrote the following letter to her
friend, Vanessa Vollenberg:
"My Sweetheart,
"It is Saturday and we are having a dinner party this
evening, and I'm feeling awfully excited. Things are
particularly slow here on the whole. I have scarcely spoken
to a man since I addressed my porter at King's Cross four
days ago. Isn't it rank? What mother and my sister Cleo do
with their men I can't imagine, unless they think they are
better out of harm's way. I know they know heaps of men.
"By the way, talking of keeping out of harm's way, you
remember you used to tell me at school that if I looked long
enough at a young man with my dark eyes he would get
sunburnt,--well, the day before yesterday a very funny thing
happened. I was in the train with poor old Cleo (she's grown
a most appalling old maid, by-the-bye), and there was a
young man opposite who really looked a most awful devil. You
know, he had those wicked eyes that go up at their outside
corners like tigers'. He was heavenly. I simply couldn't
take my eyes off him, and he kept looking at me. Cleo said
very stuffily (she's always stuffy with me), 'Don't stare!'
and he must have overheard, because he turned away, and
there was a most devilish curl on his lips. If we hadn't got
out at the next station, I'm sure we should have ended by
smiling at each other quite openly. You know, he was one of
the sort who one guesses has got good teeth before they even
open their mouths.
"Some men are coming this evening, thank God! But what
they'll be like Heaven alone knows! I have hopes though,
because mother always did have a sweet tooth for rather nice
men, you see father was tremendously attractive. But what
poor Auntie Cleo's choice will be I daren't think. One of
the men is supposed to be earmarked for her.
"Oh, and now listen. Peachy--that's my mother--insists upon
your coming to our place at Brineweald for at least three
weeks during the summer holidays. Oh, Nessy, my heart's
love!--what a joy to see you again! So you will come, won't
you? I told Peachy you could play a good game of tennis, and
now she insists on your coming. So mind, no refusal. You
must tell your dear mother she simply must spare you, and
there's an end of it.
"Thank you a billion trillion times for your absolutely
divine letter. But I cannot write about all you say, I'm too
excited as it is. When can you come? Then we can talk. Oh
for another long talk with my wise and wicked Nessy.
"Now listen! We leave for Brineweald in about ten days. Can
you join us in about a fortnight from now? We might have
gone at once, but I must have some clothes. And it seems to
me that it will take all my time to get them before we
start.
"Oh, and now another thing (and this is very, _very_ secret,
so secret that you must _swear_ you'll tear up this letter
_at once_, the moment you have read it). You remember you
and the other girls used to laugh at me at school about my
brown neck and my brown eyelids, and my brownish knuckles.
You used to chaff me and tell me it was because I hadn't
washed. Well, you were all wrong, and I told you at the time
you were all wrong. I have just been reading a most
interesting book, all about these things (but you must never
let Peachy know about it, as it is one of father's and I
have been reading it on the sly). Remember you've sworn to
tear this letter up. In any case it explains all about my
brown neck and my brown eyelids and knuckles. It calls it
'Pigmentation'--the '_pigmentation of the mature virgin_.'
Isn't it interesting? So you see it was quite natural; and I
can't help it; on the contrary it shows I am very vigorous.
So you were all wrong--even Miss Butterworth who said I was
afraid of cold water.
"But I'll forgive everything to my sweet Nessy if only, _if
only_ she will come to the bosom of her love at Brineweald.
"With crates of kisses,
"Yours ever,
"LEO."
"P.S. Excuse this short scribble. I must go to dress. Tell
Charlie that if he has not kissed that horrid Dewlap girl
yet, I send him a nice long kiss. By-the-bye, he's such a
blind fool, he won't have noticed she bites her nails. _Do_
tell him!
"Yours LEO."
This letter written, sealed, and stamped, Leonetta put on a
tam-o'-shanter, and ran to the post with it; whereupon hurrying
upstairs, she burst violently into her mother's bedroom, to announce
what she had done. It was half-past six and her mother was dressing.
Now Mrs. Delarayne's toilet, as may be imagined, was an unusually
elaborate and skilful business. Every corner of her large bedroom seemed
to offer its contribution towards the final effect. The bed, the chairs,
and even the mantelpiece participated in the process, while cupboard and
wardrobe doors stood ominously open.
Mrs. Delarayne's maid Wilmott,--silent, grave, preoccupied and
efficient,--moved hither and thither, calmly but quickly, her head
discreetly bowed, her voice more subdued than at ordinary times, as if
she were officiating at a rite; and gradually, very gradually, the
business proceeded.
Facing a corner of the bedroom, with a large window to her left, Mrs.
Delarayne sat before her dressing-table, upon which, towering above the
forest of bottles, brushes, boxes, and other paraphernalia, stood a
large triple mirror, which enabled the elegant widow to get three
different aspects of her handsome face at the same time.
The expression upon Mrs. Delarayne's face when she peered into this
formidable reflector of her own image was scarcely self-complacent or
serene. It was rather studious, anxious, critical, almost fierce, like
that one would expect to find on the face of an ancient alchemist
contemplating an alembic of precious compounds. Year in, year out, ever
since her gradually waning youth had begun to add ever fresh
complications to her once rapid and easy toilet, Mrs. Delarayne had
faced herself with this determined and defiant expression on her
features, resolved to overcome every difficulty and every undesirable
innovation of time. Slowly the complex equipment had grown up. Now it
was so extensive, that it required all the dexterity and knowledge that
habit alone can impart, in order to master and understand its
multitudinous intricacies.
In this mirror, then, when her expression was at its fiercest in
intentness and concentration, she saw her daughter enter the room behind
her, and for an instant a spasmodic frown darkened her already lowering
brow.
"I cannot see you now, you know that, Leo darling," she hastened to
exclaim as sweetly as possible, while her daughter was still on the
threshold.
"All right, Peachy,--I shan't keep you a moment."
A slight flush crept up the mother's neck just below her ears,--this was
a thing Cleo had too much delicacy to do. Cleo never disturbed her while
she was dressing,--and she straightway stopped all operations and laid
her hands resignedly in her lap.
"Well, be quick," she said, with ill-concealed irritation. "What is it?"
In the glass she could see her daughter's quick and intelligent eyes
wandering all about her with the deepest interest, and resting here and
there as if more than usually absorbed, and she frowned again.
Meanwhile, Leonetta, who had not seen her mother's bedroom, particularly
the dressing-table, at such a busy crisis for many years, and who, when
she had seen it in the past had been too young to grasp its full
meaning, was too eagerly engaged scanning its imposing array of creams,
scents, powders, oils, salves, cosmetics, tresses of hair, and other
"aids," to be able to remember what she had come for, and simply stood
there like one fascinated and spellbound.
"Quick, child! can't you see you're wasting my time?" her mother
ejaculated irascibly. "Besides, you've got to get dressed too!"
This was an unfortunate remark. It brought out more vividly than was
necessary, the immense contrast between her own and her daughter's
toilet, and before she had time to think, Leonetta had replied.
"Oh, I've got heaps of time. It doesn't take me a moment. I'll race you
easily, even now."
Then a thought entered Leonetta's mind, which, to her credit be it said,
she resisted at first, but which was too overpowering to be completely
banished. It struck her for a moment that there was something faintly
comical, almost pathetically ridiculous, in this elderly matron taking
such laborious and elaborate pains to make herself attractive. Try as
she might, Leonetta, from her angle of vision of seventeen years, could
not repress the question: "What was it all for? What was the good of it
all? Who could possibly care? Was the end commensurate with the
exhaustive and exhausting means?" As the fierce light from the window
beat down upon her mother's face, it seemed so old, so wondrously old,
that all the formidable machinery of beautification about the room
struck a chord of compassion in the flapper's breast, which was,
however, at once compounded with humour in her mind. And then she could
control herself no longer, and was forced to smile,--one of those broad
mirthful smiles that are parlously near a laugh. Feeling, however, that
her mood was one of derision, she turned quickly aside,--but not soon
enough successfully to evade her mother's observant scrutiny.
Mrs. Delarayne was too well aware of the awkward possibilities of the
situation, and moreover too acutely sensitive generally, to be in any
doubt as to the meaning of her younger daughter's amusement, and the
flush beneath her ears spread to her cheeks. Simultaneously, however,
her handsome face seemed suddenly to grow wonderfully stern and
composed, and her eyes flashed with the fire which every woman seems to
hold in reserve for an anti-feminine attack.
"Wilmott," she said quietly, "will you leave the room a moment? I'll
ring when I want you."
Without even turning round to satisfy her curiosity, the well-trained
servant dropped on to the corner of the bed the things she held in her
hands, and was gone.
For some unaccountable reason Leonetta at the same time felt a tremor of
apprehension pass slowly over her, and her hands grew icily cold. She
could feel her mother's masterful will in the atmosphere of the room,
and glancing tremulously askance at the widow's unfinished coiffure,
every line of which seemed crisp with power, walked over to the
hearth-rug.
Mrs. Delarayne's redness had now vanished. She was if anything a little
pale, and she turned to face her daughter.
"I am not angry, Leo," she began with terrifying suavity, "but I felt I
really could not explain all these things to you,"--she waved a hand
over the mass of articles displayed on the dressing-table,-- "in front
of Wilmott. You see, servants have to take these things for granted
without explanation."
Leonetta felt her ears beginning to burn furiously. Her mother could be
terrible.
"Yes, you see now," continued the widow, "how worrying and how difficult
are the means which I have to use to make myself presentable. Age is a
tiresome thing, is it not? It is so much more simple when one is young."
The invincible "Warrior" smiled kindly, and saw that tears were
gathering in her daughter's eyes.
"Would you perhaps like me to go through these things with you, and
explain them to you one by one?" she continued. "I have had to learn it
all myself. I might save you a good many pitfalls in the remote future."
Leonetta's throat was dry, and her lips were parched.
"No, thank you," she replied hoarsely, and she made quickly towards the
door.
"You have not told me what you wanted to say," said her mother
playfully.
"I'll tell you later on," rejoined the girl in broken tones.
"Then will you please ring for Wilmott?" said Mrs. Delarayne, turning
calmly to face her mirror again.
And after savagely pressing the bell, the flapper vanished.
With her eyes blinded by stinging tears, and feeling very much more
maddened by regret than by mortification, Leonetta fled to her room. She
was not only staggered, she was also thoroughly ashamed. A boy suddenly
butted by a lamb, which he had believed he might torment with impunity,
could not have felt more astonished. A convert brought face to face with
the livid wounds which, in her days of unbelief, she had inflicted upon
a Christian martyr could not have felt more deeply dejected and
penitent. Like a flash, an old emotion of childhood had filled her
breast; an old emotion that seemed only to have gathered strength in the
intervening years,--that blind, unthinking and dependent love of the
infant for its mother.
Should she go back and throw herself at the wonderful woman's knees?
Should she set out her plea for forgiveness in the folds of her mother's
dress as she had done as a baby? No, Wilmott would be there,--Wilmott
and everything besides! Moreover,--she looked in the glass,--her face
was distraught, her ears flared, her eyes still smarted horribly. Even
if Wilmott were dismissed as before, the girl would guess something.
Slowly she proceeded with her dressing, and, as she did so, a certain
vague delicacy of feeling, a sort of secret reverence for her brave
youth-loving mother downstairs, kept her from glancing too frequently in
the glass. The contrast now, instead of elating her, simply accentuated
her reminiscence of guilt. The very speed with which she adjusted her
hair and made it "presentable," as her mother had expressed it, brought
back the cruel memory of what had happened only a few minutes
previously.
In being thus affected by Mrs. Delarayne's able and perfectly relentless
handling of a difficult situation; in feeling her love for her mother
intensified backwards, so to speak, to the degree it had attained in
infancy, as the result of the incident, Leonetta showed not only that
she was worthy of her incomparable mother, but also that she had
survived less unimpaired, than some might have thought, the questionable
blessings of a finishing education.
Mrs. Delarayne who, without being truculently triumphant, was
nevertheless mildly conscious of having scored a valuable and highly
desirable point, repaired to the drawing-room twenty minutes later in a
mood admirably suited to giving her guests a warm and hearty welcome.
Cleopatra was the first to join her. Each woman honestly thought that
she had rarely seen the other look quite so beautiful, and the comments
that were exchanged were as sincere as they were flattering.
Mrs. Delarayne was too loyal to betray one sister to the other, so she
did not refer to the incident in her bedroom. Occasionally, however,
thoughts of it would make her glance a little anxiously in the direction
of the door, and as she did so, she fervently hoped that the lesson she
had administered to her younger daughter had not been too severe.
"I wonder what Baby can be doing all this time!" Cleopatra exclaimed at
last.
"I'll go and see, I think," said Mrs. Delarayne, lifting her dress just
slightly in front, and making towards the door.
"No, Edith," her daughter exclaimed, rising quickly. "I'll go. I cannot
have you making yourself hot by climbing all those stairs. Please let me
go!"
Mrs. Delarayne's wiry arm braced itself as her hand clasped the handle
of the door. "I think I'd better go," she replied.
For the first time Cleopatra began to suspect that something had
happened. She knew the relations existing between Leonetta and her
mother, but as the latter had always been so surprisingly patient and
long-suffering, she was very far from suspecting what had actually
occurred.
Their hesitation was cut short for them by the arrival of the first
guest, Sir Joseph Bullion, who, a moment later, was followed by Denis
Malster, Guy Tyrrell, Agatha Fearwell and her brother Stephen (friends
of Cleopatra's), and Miss Mallowcoid.
The last to enter the drawing-room was Leonetta. She had evidently
dreaded encountering her mother and sister alone, and she had purposely
waited till she heard the guests arrive before coming down. Although to
those who knew her there were certain unusual signs of demurity in her
expression and demeanour in the early part of the evening, she presented
a dramatically beautiful appearance, and the sober reserve of her mood
if anything enhanced this effect, by lending it the additional charm of
mystery and inscrutableness.
Cleopatra was a little puzzled. Never had she expected that Leo would
behave in this way, particularly in the presence of young men, and her
feeling towards her sister underwent a momentary revulsion. She noticed
that Denis scarcely took his eyes off her sister; but she also observed
that Leo hardly ever responded, and simply talked quietly and demurely
on to Guy Tyrrell or Stephen Fearwell. She could not understand, nor did
her deepest wishes allow her to suspect, that her sister's delightfully
sober mood was only a transient one.
During the dinner a slight diversion was created by Leonetta's
addressing her parent as "Mother." But the poor child was so confused
when she realised what she had done, and particularly when she thought
of why she had done it, that everybody except Miss Mallowcoid
endeavoured to ease the situation by being tremendously voluble.
After what had occurred between herself and her mother, the cold and
distant appellation "Edith" did not spring naturally or spontaneously to
Leonetta's lips. On the other hand "Peachy" seemed to belong to another
and previous existence. She did not wish her mother to suspect,
however, that she had used the term "mother" with deliberate intent to
annoy.
"That's right, my child," cried Miss Mallowcoid. "It is really
refreshing to hear one of you girls, at least, addressing your mother in
the usual and proper fashion!"
Leonetta with her cheeks ablaze, glared at her aunt menacingly.
"Well, I don't like it," she blurted out. "It was a slip of the tongue.
Cleo and I much prefer the name Edith."
She spoke sharply and even rudely, seeing that it was her aunt she was
addressing, but Mrs. Delarayne, who was beginning to understand the
penitential spirit she was in, smiled kindly at her notwithstanding.
"I always look upon them as three sisters," Sir Joseph exclaimed
somewhat laboriously, "whatever they call one another."
Miss Mallowcoid scoffed, and Mrs. Delarayne patted his hand
persuasively. "You get on with your dinner," she said playfully.
Meanwhile Miss Mallowcoid had not taken her vindictive eyes off her
younger niece, and the latter in sheer desperation plunged into an
animated but very perfunctory conversation with her right-hand
neighbour, Guy Tyrrell.
It is time that this young man should be described. He was the type
usually called healthy and "clean-minded." He loved all sports and all
kinds of exercise, particularly walking, and he could talk about these
out-of-door occupations fairly amusingly. He was fair, blue-eyed,
clean-shaven, and healthy-looking, and he believed in the possibility of
being a "pal" to a girl,--particularly if she happened to be a flapper.
His age was twenty-seven.
It is not generally understood what precisely is implied by the so-called
healthy "clean-minded" unmarried Englishman of twenty-seven, or
thereabouts. As a rule the epithet "clean-minded" sums up not merely a
mental condition, but a method of life. It signifies that the young man to
whom it may justly be applied is either a master, or at least a lover, of
games, that his outlook is what is known as "breezy," that he observes the
rules of cricket in every relation to his fellow creatures, and that he is
capable of enduring defeat or success with the same impassable calm and
good-nature. Now it would be absurd to deny that here we have a very
imposing catalogue of highly desirable characteristics; it would, however,
be equally absurd to claim that the person in whom they are all happily
combined, necessarily displays, side by side with his mastery of games and
his deep understanding of cricket in particular, that mastery or
understanding of the mysteries of life, that virtuosity in the art of life,
which would constitute him a desirable mate. There is a _savoir faire_,
there are problems and intricacies in life, which no degree of familiarity
with cricket, no vast fund of experience in the football field, can help a
man to master; and it is even questionable whether a young man's ultimate
destiny as a husband and a father, far from being assisted, is not even
seriously complicated by the extent to which he must have specialised in
games and sports in order to earn for himself the whiteflower of
"clean-mindedness." It is the wives of such men who are in a position to
throw the most light on this question. There is no doubt that they
frequently have a tale to tell; but the best among them are naturally
disinclined to admit the very serious reasons they may have for disliking
the silver trophies that adorn their homes.
As the dinner wore on, animation waxed greater; Sir Joseph dropped an
ever-increasing number of aspirates, and Leonetta was actually heard to
laugh quite merrily.
Cleopatra still noticed that Denis was very much interested in her, and
also observed that, from time to time, Leonetta now responded to his
attentive scrutiny.
The conversation turned on gymnastics. Denis, Guy, and Leonetta all
seemed to be talking at once; it was a subject that Cleopatra did not
know much about.
"We always had three quarters of an hour's gym a day," said Leonetta,
looking straight at Denis.
He laughed. "Oh, well," he exclaimed, "you have done me. I haven't
touched parallel bars or a trapeze for ten years."
"Neither have I," Guy added.
Thereupon Leonetta allowed Guy to feel the muscles of her arm.
"Iron!" he ejaculated, while Cleopatra looked on with just a little
surprise.
"You might at least say steel," she interjected, trying to sustain her
role as one of the juveniles at table.
In the midst of a very prosy conversation with Sir Joseph and Miss
Mallowcoid, Mrs. Delarayne found opportunities enough to watch the
younger people, and she was not a little relieved to see the cloud
gradually lifting from Leonetta's brow. She knew that in the
circumstances she had not been too hard, and gathered from a hundred
different signs that her relationship to her younger daughter had been
materially improved by what had occurred.
Later on in the drawing-room, before the men arrived, however, Leonetta
seemed to suffer a relapse into her former mood of excessive sobriety,
and it was then that Miss Mallowcoid beckoned her niece to her.
"I think you were unnecessarily cross with me at dinner," Mrs. Delarayne
overheard her sister saying.
Leonetta pouted, and with an air of utter indifference turned to
Cleopatra.
"I think Guy Tyrrell rather tame, don't you? It was most awful uphill
work talking to him all through dinner."
Cleopatra held up a finger admonishingly. "You seemed to be talking
animatedly enough," she said.
"Yes," Leonetta began, "all about photography, walking tours, and things
that don't matter--" Then she felt Miss Mallowcoid's huge cold hand on
her arm.
"Leonetta dear, I said something to you a moment ago," lisped the
elderly spinster. And again Mrs. Delarayne looked up to try to catch her
daughter's reply.
"I'm sorry, Aunt Bella," said the girl, "but really one does not usually
expect to be congratulated on a slip of the tongue, and your--" she
burst out laughing.
Mrs. Delarayne thereupon resumed her conversation with Agatha Fearwell,
as she was now satisfied that Leonetta was both thoroughly recovered and
satisfactorily reformed.
"But I did not congratulate you, I--" her aunt persisted.
"Oh, well," Leonetta interrupted, "it really isn't worth discussing."
In any case it was not discussed, for at this juncture the men appeared.
They distributed themselves anything but haphazardly; Sir Joseph, for
instance, seating himself by the side of his hostess; Denis Malster
between Leonetta and her sister, and Guy and Stephen, as their
diffidence suggested, as remotely as possible from the younger women of
the party.
"Now, Leonetta," Sir Joseph began, "tell us something about your school
life. You are the only one amongst us who has just come from a strange
world."
Leonetta laughed. "Yes, a very strange world," she exclaimed.
Sir Joseph laughed too at what he conceived to be a most whimsical
suggestion.
"And did you 'ave nice teachers?" he pursued.
"Miss Tomlinson, the history mistress was my favourite," replied the
girl.
Denis remarked that he did not know they taught history at a school of
Domesticity.
"Yes, you see," Leonetta replied, "the history of the subject. Cookery
since the dawn of civilisation, or something desperate like that."
"Was she nice?" Sir Joseph enquired.
"I thought so," answered the girl, "though she wasn't beautiful. You
know, she had that sort of very long chin that you feel you ought to
shake hands with."
Sir Joseph laughed and made all kinds of grimaces at Mrs. Delarayne,
intended to convey that Leonetta was indeed a chip of the old block.
"That's unkind," said Miss Mallowcoid.
Denis Malster threw out his legs and clasped his hands at the back of
his head preparatory to making a speech.
"The heartlessness of flappers!" he murmured. "This is indeed a subject
worthy of elaboration. Why is the flapper usually heartless?"
Mrs. Delarayne was quick to perceive the unpleasant possibilities of
developing such a theme, particularly in view of what had happened
earlier in the evening, and, seeking to save Leonetta's feelings, she
valiantly tried to change the subject.
"Well, in any case," she said, addressing Leonetta, "you are none the
worse for it, my dear. Two years ago you were such a tomboy you could
scarcely get out of the door without chipping a piece off each hip; and
now----"
"Yes, now she chips pieces off other people," interposed Miss
Mallowcoid.
Leonetta, however, was not attending. Her eyes were for the moment
fastened on Denis Malster. He had known how to say just the very thing
to provoke her interest. He had as much as declared that she was
heartless. He,--a man,--had said this. It was like a challenge. She, who
felt all heart, or what the world calls "heart," was strangely moved.
How could he say such a thing? This was the last remark she would have
expected from any man. Her curiosity was kindled, and with it her
vanity.
She noticed, as her sister had noticed before her, that he was
efficient, well-groomed, smart of speech, passably good-looking,
independent at least in bearing, hard, at least in appearance, and
possessed of a certain gift of irony that could act like a lash.
She began to think more highly of him; in fact the recollection of his
last remark actually piqued her now she thought of it again. At last,
for sheer decency, she had to look away from him, and as she did so,
she observed that Cleopatra averted her eyes from her.
There was a stir in the company. Agatha Fearwell was going to sing, and
Miss Mallowcoid went to the piano.
The performance was not above the usual standard of such amateur
efforts, and at the end of it the singer was vouchsafed the usual
perfunctory plaudits.
Thereupon Sir Joseph requested a song from Cleopatra. This apparently
necessitated a long search in the music cabinet during which all the
young people rose from their seats. At last a song was found; it was a
sort of French folk-song entitled _Les Epouseuses du Berry_.
As Cleopatra turned to join her aunt at the piano, however, a spectacle
met her eyes which, innocent as it appeared, was nevertheless fatal to
her composure.
Denis Malster and Leonetta, facing each other in a far corner of the
room, with heads so close that they almost touched, and with hands
tightly clasped, were playing the old, old game of trying the strength
of each other's wrists, each endeavouring to force the other to kneel.
It was harmless enough,--simply one of those very transparent and very
early attempts that are almost unconsciously made by two young people of
opposite sexes, to become decently and interestingly in close touch with
each other.
Cleopatra's first feeling was one of surprise at Leonetta's being so
wonderfully resourceful in engaging the attention of men. When, however,
she observed the details of the contest,--the closely gripped hands, the
fingers intertwined, the palms now meeting, now parting, and the two
smiling faces, Denis Malster's rather attractive figure, appearing to
tremendous advantage now, she could not quite see why,--a feeling of
uncontrollable alarm took possession of her, and she spread her music
with some agitation before her aunt.
Miss Mallowcoid played the opening bars, and still the contest in the far
corner did not stop. Denis was not even aware that she--Cleopatra--was
about to sing.
At last Mrs. Delarayne, who had not been blind to what was taking place,
felt she must interfere. Cleopatra's first note was already overdue.
"Leo, Leo, my dear," she cried, "your sister is going to sing to us."
Leonetta turned round, said she was sorry, released her hands, and she
and Denis joined the seated group at some distance from the piano.
The incident, however, was not over yet; for, just as her sister sang
her first note, Leonetta, her eyes sparkling with excitement, and her
hands discoloured by the struggle, ejaculated loud enough for everyone
to hear, "Denis, you're a fibber. Your hands are like iron too!"
Mrs. Delarayne put a finger to her lips, but it was too late. There was
a sound of music being roughly folded up, and Cleopatra turned away
from the piano.
"If you're all going to talk," she said, looking a little pale, "it's no
use my singing, is it? I can wait a moment."
"Sorry, old girl," Leonetta cried. "It was only me. I'm dumb now."
Mrs. Delarayne had risen and was urging her elder daughter back to the
piano. Sir Joseph was also trying his hand at persuasion, and when Miss
Mallowcoid and Agatha added their prayers to the rest, Cleopatra at last
spread her music out again, and the song began.
Those, however, who know the swing and gaiety of _Les Epouseuses du
Berry_, will hardly require to be told how hopeless was the effect of it
when sung by a voice which, owing to recent and unabated vexation, was
continually on the verge of tears. Nothing, perhaps, is more thoroughly
tragic than a really lively melody intoned by a voice quavering with
emotion, and even Sir Joseph, who did not understand a word of the song,
was deeply grateful when it was all over.
Mrs. Delarayne made determined efforts at restoring the natural and
spontaneous good cheer which the party appeared to have lost, but her
exertions were only partially successful, and although Agatha Fearwell
and Cleopatra sang other songs, the recollection of that tragico-comic
_Les Epouseuses du Berry_ had evidently sunk too deeply to be removed.
That night, as Cleopatra was taking leave of her mother, in the latter's
bedroom, she lingered a little at the door.
"What is it, my darling?" Mrs. Delarayne demanded. "Do you want to ask
me something?"
"Yes, Edith," Cleopatra replied slowly, looking down at the handle she
was holding. "I am perfectly prepared to admit that Leo did not perhaps
intend to be offensive over my song, although, of course, as you know
she ruined the whole thing; but anyhow, do you think that she has any
right, so soon after meeting him, to call Mr. Malster 'Denis'? Isn't it
rather bad form?"
Mrs. Delarayne sighed. "Very bad form, my dear, very bad form," she
replied. "Of course, I admit, it's very bad form. But for all we know,
he may have asked her to do it. You see, both you and I call him
'Denis,' and I suppose he thought it would sound odd if Leo did not
also."
Still Cleopatra lingered. She wanted to say more, and Mrs. Delarayne
divined that she wanted to say more. The words, however, were hard to
find, and, at last, bidding her mother "Good-night," she departed only
half comforted.