"When and where?" she demanded.

"Well, you know that awfully good-looking boy who was sitting on the bench when we bathed yesterday----"

Vanessa nodded in her business-like way.

"Well, didn't you notice that he bathed at the same time as we did to-day?"

"Oh, I thought I saw him," replied Vanessa.

"And he kept standing in the water," Leonetta continued, "with his arms folded, staring at me. He looked most awfully wicked,--it was lovely!"

she cried laughing.

"But where does Denis come in?" enquired the Jewess, who was not too prone to jump to hasty conclusions concerning other people's triumphs.

"Well, don't you see,--Denis saw him, and saw that I sometimes stared back at him."

"Oh, is that all?" Vanessa exclaimed, with a somewhat exaggerated note of disappointment in her voice. "But did he say anything then?"

"Yes, after the bathe," Leonetta rejoined, dropping her voice to a whisper, "he asked me whether I knew that strange young man."

"Well?" Vanessa demanded, still retaining the note of disappointed expectancy in her voice.

"That's all," Leonetta replied, conscious that Vanessa had ruined the effect of her little narrative.

For some moments Vanessa silently continued her toilet; then when she was quite ready to go downstairs, she sat down and waited for her friend.

"Are you fond of Denis?" she enquired at last.

"He's not bad," replied Leonetta carelessly. "What do you think he thinks of me?"

Vanessa's keen Jewish features became inscrutable in a moment, and her eyes turned as it were indifferently to the window. A week ago she might have replied that Denis was obviously "smitten"; but four days of almost total neglect and really formidable rivalry are hard to forgive, even when one flatters oneself that one is "above" such treatment.

"He certainly seems to be amused by you," she said cryptically.

Leonetta did not like this way of putting it, and the conversation therefore ceased to interest her. "Are you coming?" she said, and made towards the door.

In another room Cleopatra had been listening to Agatha Fearwell's account of what had occurred at Stonechurch that morning, and the facts she culled from the girl's guileless and unsuspecting statement had not reassured her.

"Cleo, what on earth's the matter?" Agatha cried suddenly.

"Why--what?" Cleopatra rejoined, bracing herself, but turning a drawn and haggard face, that had just grown unusually pale, to her friend.

"My dear, aren't you well?"

"Quite," replied Cleopatra, parting her lips in a faint, hardly convincing smile.

"But you can't be,--sit down, do!" said Agatha.

Cleopatra made a stupendous effort to recover herself, which was singularly reminiscent of her undefeated mother. "The heat, I suppose,"

she observed.

But Agatha was not satisfied. She was too intelligent to be silenced by such an obvious feminine defence. She could not help drawing her own conclusions, although Cleopatra's proud reserve forbade her asking any further questions.

Denis stayed to lunch at "The Fastness" that day, and in the afternoon there was tennis. The beautiful weather still continuing, Mrs. Delarayne was loath to join Sir Joseph on his interminable excursions by car. He had her sister with him, and the Tribes, and she had also sent Vanessa, of whom he had grown very fond, to represent her. "If people will keep a lot of fat chauffeurs who must be occupied," she said, "I don't see why I should be compelled to bore myself for hours at a time on that account." However, they were all returning to "The Fastness" to tea that afternoon.

So she reclined on her _chaise-longue_ in one of the shady corners of her garden behind the lawn, reading the latest of Richard Latimer's novels, and there very soon Cleopatra joined her. Between them stood an occasional table, and upon it were tumblers, a few bottles of ale, and a glass jug containing still lemonade.

A moment before Agatha had had five minutes' private conversation with Mrs. Delarayne, and the latter was looking a trifle serious when her daughter joined her.

"Cleo, my dear," she began, "you look tired,--been overdoing it?"

"I have a headache," Cleopatra retorted impatiently.

No more than Agatha was Mrs. Delarayne likely to be satisfied with this reply. She saw now that Agatha had been right, and blamed herself for her blindness hitherto.

"I don't like you to be so interested in that silly needlework," she added. "You are not yourself, or you would not work so ridiculously fast."

Cleopatra said nothing.

"Cleo, do you hear me?" she cried. "I'm speaking to you. Look up?--Why are you so silent?"

"Oh, Edith, for Heaven's sake!" exclaimed the distracted girl. "I don't think I could have slept well last night--that's all."

"Why aren't you Denis's partner at tennis?"

"For the simple reason," Cleopatra replied, with a self-revelatory glare in her eyes, "that Baby is!"

Mrs. Delarayne turned to her novel for a moment. "Who's Agatha playing with?" she enquired at last.

"With Guy of course."

"And where's Stephen?"

"Oh, he's somewhere. I believe he's cleaning his motor-cycle."

At this point Guy's voice was heard from the lawn:

"We're thirty and Leonetta and Denis are love!"

Cleopatra made a violent movement with her foot, and accidently kicked the table so that all the tumblers rang in unison.

"Oh, Cleo, my dear!--do be careful!" the widow exclaimed. "What have you done?"

"It's nothing, Edith--nothing."

"Forty--love," cried Guy Tyrrell.

"The terminology of tennis is at times a little tiresome," thought Mrs.