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.