Meanwhile, however, in another part of the grounds, a very much more subtle, irresistible, and skilful proposal was being pronounced. True, it was being made by a man who desired at all costs, and in good time, to secure his achieved success from threatened assault, and who was therefore a little desperate; but it was also the performance of a creature who knew his subject, who understood its difficulties, and who was not hindered by any of those scruples of ignorance and purity which temper ardour and paralyse daring.

For Malster was in the condition in which a man's desire may truly be said to have become a physical ache. A feeling of sick longing held his heart and entrails as in a vise, a sort of cramp of violent tension stiffened all his tissues. On Leonetta his eyes were fastened as if by some powerful magnet. The rest of the world, as also its inhabitants, was obliterated; they seemed nothing more than shadows passing and re-passing,--shadows which, if need be, could be pushed aside, offended, outraged. For what, after all, are shadows?

People are mistaken if they imagine that it requires any effort to sacrifice position, power, friends, parents,--aye, even home, nationality, and honour,--when a man is in this condition. For these things are as nothing, beside the all-devouring anguish of so great a desire. They are not sacrificed in such circumstances; they simply do not enter within his purview.

If Leonetta had acted wilfully, deliberately, and with her object clearly conceived before she began, she could not have achieved any greater success; for Malster was her abject slave. Jealous of every look or word she vouchsafed to another, hating even the kitten that her rosy well-made fingers clasped, literally ill away from her presence, and thrilled almost painfully by the sound of her voice when she returned, the whole of Brineweald had become for him but a fantastic and hardly material background, to a scene in which his emotions beat out their gigantic throbs like Titans wrestling for freedom. He was not even in a fit state to use an ordinary foot-rule with accuracy.

To speak to such a man of morals, of ethical duty, of certain obligations to an elder sister, of responsibility to host or hostess, or to society, would have been little better than to try to teach table etiquette to a boa-constrictor. There was only one thing that could force him to become sober for one instant and to reflect, and that was the menace of successful rivalry. But even then his sober mood would last only as long as he was maturing panic schemes to overcome the difficulty.

Such a mood of sober reflection had, however, possessed him ever since the advent of Lord Henry, and although he had not the slightest reason either to suspect or to surmise that the young nobleman wished to defeat him in any field, such was the magnitude of his desire for Leonetta and the jealousy it provoked, that every minute that Lord Henry spoke, every minute that his voice held the flapper's ears in attentive subjection, were to him so many hours of agonising dread.

A glance at Leonetta would convince him that she was listening; further observation would reveal the fact that she was also interested; and finally he would recognise that her eyes were upon the young nobleman, even when he was silent.

Denis Malster had perceived with female quickness the infernal charms of Lord Henry's personality; he had measured almost exactly, despite the natural tendency to exaggeration into which his jealousy led him, the precise effect of Lord Henry's persuasive and emphatic tongue upon the female ear. He had seen its effect on Mrs. Delarayne, on Vanessa, on Agatha, on Mrs. Tribe. Was it likely that Leonetta would long remain insensible to the difference between himself and the new arrival?

Already he had been obliged to abandon those daily contests on the subject of the Inner Light with the wretched Gerald Tribe, because Lord Henry promised to be too much for him. And yet they had been so valuable,--such a splendid opportunity for exhibiting his proudest achievements!

Things had come to such a pass that he literally did not dare to organise again those pleasant little assemblies, in which he could discuss anything and challenge all comers, with the perfect certainty of shining as he vanquished them. It is true that he could have continued them by carefully omitting Lord Henry from their midst; but he was by no means a fool, and did not underestimate the intelligence of those about him. Thus he realised the damaging effect it would be sure to have on his prestige, if he persistently manoeuvred to leave Lord Henry out; and he knew well enough how quickly women notice such things,--they who are such past-masters at precisely this kind of manoeuvring.

Had Lord Henry not come upon the scene, Denis would have been content, as was his wont, to prolong the delicious agony of his love indefinitely, secure in the thought that at any moment he would be able by a word to secure Leonetta for ever to him.

Now, however, there could no longer be any question of prolonging the situation indefinitely. The only problem that occupied his mind was, when and how to say that word to Leonetta which was to bind her for ever to him, before she receded one hundredth of an inch from the summit of ecstasy to which he imagined she too must have climbed in the last few days.

Thus he had been moved by a thought similar to Guy Tyrrell's; but there, as we shall see, the likeness ceased.

A girl of seventeen or eighteen is nearly always in danger when a man of thirty pays attention to her,--in danger, that is to say, of acquiescing too soon, too early in life, too unreflectedly and ignorantly.

Leonetta had been intoxicated by Denis Malster's worship. It would perhaps be unscientific here, and therefore untrue, to overlook the fact that the conquest of her sister's beau, had been in itself a triumphant achievement, apart from any particular claims he might have to attraction. But is not human nature such that in any case it is always partially subdued by devotion? Does not even the love of an animal make an irresistible appeal to the most callous? Is not the common preference for dogs before cats in England, largely ascribable to the fact that the flattery residing in devotion and affection makes such an impelling appeal to all vain people, that the superior animal is discarded for the inferior? The dog is grossly and offensively obscene; he is dirty, he pollutes our streets; he is a coward, and has the pusillanimous spirit of a rather faint-hearted lackey. The cat, on the other hand, is decent, clean, consistently sanitary, brave, and possessed of the great-hearted self-reliant spirit of a born warrior. The cat, however, does not fawn, it does not flatter, it shows no devotion, it knows none of the sycophantic wiles of the dog; but since modern mankind in England is animated chiefly by vanity, the dog with all his objectionable characteristics and habits is preferred.

Now women, though by no means alone in the possession of vanity, are perhaps a little more subject than men to its sway, and it is precisely their vanity which is their greatest danger. Like the modern Englishman, they all too frequently overlook the noble for the inferior animal, because the latter is a better worshipper, and, particularly when they are still in their teens, worship from the male, which is something so novel, so exquisitely strange, and so stimulating to their self-esteem, constitutes one of the greatest pitfalls they can encounter.

Why should it necessarily be a pitfall? Precisely because it may induce them to decide too soon in favour of an inferior man.

Leonetta was therefore in danger, and Lord Henry knew it.

Everything he had said and done in her presence since he had come to Brineweald, had been deliberate, premeditated, purposeful,--all with the intention of averting the danger she was in, or at least with the view of giving her time to collect her senses, and to obtain some breathing space before coming to the fatal decision.

Denis Malster was sufficiently sensitive to be vaguely aware of the element of an organised attack in the behaviour of the young nobleman, upright and above-board as it had been; hence his hurrying of his inestimable treasure,--the one creature that could give him peace,--along the road to Headlinge that evening; hence too the tactics he had resolved to adopt. For he felt instinctively, not only that Lord Henry was moving against him, but also that Mrs. Delarayne was fast becoming an open enemy.

They entwined fingers discreetly as they walked along, and the moment they had plunged into the grove, he would raise her hand from time to time, as he spoke, and kiss it fervently. It was cool and firm, a beautiful symbol of her beautiful body, and he was racked with a wildness of longing by the side of which the language of Cupid sounds like the pipe of a bird in a hurricane.

It seemed to his resourceful mind that possibly the best way of securing this girl's attachment to him, would be by a vivid appeal to her senses.

His prestige was at stake, and in this dilemma men have been known to go to even greater lengths than when driven by sensuality alone. He did not underestimate the vigour of her passions, and knew that in this direction there was hope of uncontested victory.

"How heavenly it is," he said, "to have you quite alone for once, with nothing but wild nature looking on! How I loathe that crowd when it keeps us apart even for a moment."

He halted for a second, and they kissed.

"Oh, Leo, my darling," he continued, as they again walked slowly towards Headlinge, "you don't know how I suffer to see you in your present environment. You who are so natural, so essentially a creature of the wilds, surrounded by things that are so artificial, so overheated, so stagey. I shudder every time I hear you call the Warrior 'Peachy.' It shows how grossly your true nature has been distorted to serve her artificial ends. The beautiful word 'mother' would give the lie to the deception she tries to practice daily upon all of us, with every means that her art can supply. Excuse my speaking like this of your mother; but I imagine you a wild creature of the woods, with flowing hair; your mother a natural parent, who resigns herself cheerfully and becomingly to age, whose face is coloured uniquely by the sun, despising as much as you yourself surely do those petty tricks of make-believe,--those cosmetics and hair-dyes, that don't even deceive the coarsest chauffeur on the road,--and realising the charm of her years as much as she admires the beauty of yours. It makes me boil to see you corrupted by this atmosphere!"

He was careful at the end of each little speech to stop and fondle her, and to press her cool firm fingers to his lips in an ecstasy of devotion.

"You were not made to rear a town-street full of dandies, of Lord Henrys and his like, but to be the proud dam of a stalwart race of yeomen. It is in just such a wild setting as this that you, the Diana of a truly British country-side, could shine to greatest perfection. You are a child of freedom, a bird whose gorgeous wings they are trying to clip."

They sat down on a bank. The brilliance of the moon illuminated the country beyond. The chimneys of Sir Joseph's house were visible far away to the right.

He had another passionate outburst, convincing because he was genuinely at his wit's end with longing. He smothered her with his embraces, rained kisses on a face that was seductively screened by roughly dishevelled hair, and which smiled back at him with a look of intoxication almost equal to his own. And then at last, concluding instinctively that the moment had come for complete forgetfulness, he even thought he might proceed to discount bills of intimacy before they had become due,--a practice not uncommon in England,--and he held her in a way that was at least novel to the eager flapper.

Half fearfully he waited for the effect of his daring action. She said nothing, but simply showed her magnificent white teeth in a smile that betokened the most complete satisfaction.

"Leo, fly away with me, will you? Don't let us wait to ask. Let us go. I have savings; besides, I am no fool. It would mean leaving Bullion's of course, but why need we mind that? You can trust me, can't you? Let us leave this hated place, with its people who do not understand us. We might go to Canada, where wild nature has taught people to be more natural than they are here. Oh, say you will come with me. It would be heavenly!"

"Do you mean at once?" she exclaimed, laughing now at the transport of devotion which had just made him kiss her feet.

"Well, I suppose we could not go actually now, but at the latest to-morrow at this time. We might steal away while everybody's dressing for the dance."

She was lying back on the bank, her eyes were keen with thought, her mouth now closed in solemn reflection. Suddenly he recognised not fifty yards away, fully revealed in the moonlight, the figures of Lord Henry and Vanessa, walking slowly along the lower path which led to Headstone.

As he had seen Lord Henry with Agatha on the same path about an hour before he could not at first believe his eyes. But the form of the stylish young Jewess was unmistakable. Lord Henry must have gone back to exchange companions. Where was Guy then? However, Leonetta had not seen them, so it did not matter.

"Quick, tell me--yes or no! because I must make all the arrangements for our flight immediately."

She made a movement to rise.

"No, don't get up," he said quickly. "You've no idea how beautiful you look there."

"But I must," cried the girl, "one of my slides is sticking into my head! If you _will_ handle me so roughly," she added, smiling with the deepest contentment.

"Let me find it for you, don't get up!" he pleaded.

But what Delaraynes want, God wants; and in an instant his obstructing hand was brushed aside and she was sitting up.

He looked into her eyes, hoping to fasten them on himself, and keep them off the hateful spectacle not fifty yards away. For a few seconds he was successful. He then proceeded to kiss her again in order to blot out the vision for yet a while longer.

"Denis!" she exclaimed, "for mercy's sake let me put my slide right, and then you can do what you like."

He desisted, shaken with overstimulated craving, and then all at once, his heart sank; for her keen eyes had seen what he hoped would have disappeared before she could notice it.

"Why, look!" she cried, "there's that little cat Vanessa walking alone with Lord Henry!"

"Yes," he rejoined, with as much indifference as he could summon.

"What on earth can they be doing?" she demanded craning her neck to see as much of them as possible.

"Oh, nothing--they're only walking. Slow enough in all conscience, I should think."

Leonetta was silent, her eyes fixed upon the couple slowly proceeding along the lower path. What could Lord Henry possibly see in that Jezebel! She recalled his hauteur and studious coldness towards herself, his air of deep understanding and mastery, his magic look of wizardly youth, his eloquence, his immense self-possession, his mysterious connection with Cleopatra's indisposition and recovery. What could it be that made him so indifferent to her?

She rose.