"Yes, we've been stepping it out a bit, because I wanted to get home."

Mrs. Delarayne noticed that her child was badly dishevelled, and that there was an unusually fiery glint in her eyes.

"What have you young people been doing all this time?" Miss Mallowcoid enquired in her most roguish manner.

"As a matter of fact we tried to reach Headlinge, and failed," said Denis, looking a trifle pale in spite of his tanned skin.

"I should have thought you could have gone there and back again twice over in the time," said Mrs. Delarayne, scrutinising her daughter with care.

"Well, we didn't," said Leonetta decisively.

"Had too much to say to each other on the way," Miss Mallowcoid interjected with a coy smile.

"Where's Agatha?" Denis demanded.

"She and Stephen have walked home; they were feeling tired."

"And Lord Henry?" Leonetta asked.

"He's gone off with my girl," said Sir Joseph with mock bitterness.

The following day broke colder and more overcast than any that the Brineweald party had had since they left London. The programme had therefore to be modified accordingly, and picnics and excursions declared out of the question.

In the morning the beach was visited as usual, and Lord Henry showed himself to be, among other things, an excellent swimmer. Cleopatra had joined the beach party though she had not bathed, but while everyone noticed that she was looking very much better, it was also observed that she had not her customary spirits. She no longer vied with Leonetta in leading the entertainment of the party, and was particularly and conspicuously subdued and laconic whenever Lord Henry addressed her.

At lunch, which was taken at "The Fastness," Lord Henry thoroughly exasperated Miss Mallowcoid by inviting the Tribes to join him on his journey to China, and roused considerable interest by describing the plan of his mission to that country. It was evident that he would require a party of helpers, and Mrs. Tribe was most eager to be of their number. The Incandescent Gerald, however, gravely shook his head.

"Of course not,--how can you be so silly, Agnes!" Miss Mallowcoid exclaimed. "Gerald has his religious duties here."

Lord Henry saw that Mrs. Tribe did not dare to reply herself, so he replied for her.

"It only remains for me to convince Mr. Tribe, then," he said, "that in following me to China he would be performing a very lofty religious duty."

"I'd go like a shot!" cried Stephen.

"So would I!" echoed Guy Tyrrell.

In the afternoon Sir Joseph asked Denis to spend a moment with him over his correspondence, and seizing the opportunity as the others were playing tennis, Lord Henry invited Leonetta and her sister to go with him to Headstone to look at Sir Joseph's prize cattle there.

Lord Henry's invitation to Leonetta constituted the first real attention he had paid her since he had been down at Brineweald, and she stammered her acceptance with ill-concealed excitement. Even with Cleo as one of the party, her curiosity regarding him was too great for her to forego this opportunity. She therefore begged to be allowed a moment to put on her hat, and when she returned at the end of five minutes, it was obvious that she had taken unusual pains with her appearance.

The three turned at a leisurely pace up the road towards Headstone, and as Miss Mallowcoid saw their hats vanish on the other side of the hedge, she announced the fact of their departure to her sister.

Mrs. Delarayne was well aware of what was happening, and was not too happy about it. Lord Henry seemed lost to her.

"Oh, leave me alone, can't you!" she snarled. "Can't you see I'm reading?" and the offensiveness of her manner seemed so unaccountable to Miss Mallowcoid, that this lady got up in a state of high perturbation, and deliberately stalked over to the marquee, where for a while she sat alone brooding over the indignity she had suffered.

The trio on their way to Headstone were finding it uphill work to discover some lasting and common subject of interest with which to entertain each other; many topics were started, but the conversation was always desultory, and Lord Henry, try how he might, failed to make it general. He felt as a mariner might feel who was trying to harmonise two compasses, one of which had an error to the west, and the other an error to the east. At last, when they were on their way home, having given up all hope of success, he decided that the only way was to talk himself, and this he proceeded to do with his customary enthusiasm. The subject was suggested by Leonetta, who asked how it was that though they had heard of him so frequently during the last five or six years, neither Cleopatra nor she herself had ever seen him. This introduced them to the subject of Mrs. Delarayne, which Lord Henry seized with alacrity.

"You have no idea," he said, "how I admire the perfectly splendid way you girls deal with your mother."

Leonetta looked up and scrutinised his face. She thought he must be joking.

"You are so immensely sensible and sympathetic, when it would be so easy for you to be heartless."

"Heartless--what do you mean?" Cleopatra asked.

"Well, you see, the whole thing is so simple,--Heavens, it is almost too simple to explain!" He had that fiery way of speaking which gave to everything he said the magic impress of vital significance.

"You see," he pursued, "your mother is a really great-hearted woman, and you girls seem to have realised it and tried to live up to her. It is magnificent of you."

Both girls were deeply interested; but Cleopatra kept her eyes on the ground.

"She is clear-sighted and honest enough to see the truth about youth and age, and makes no bones about it. She doesn't pretend that there's any particular beauty in old age. God!--she's one in a thousand!"

"What truth about youth and age?" Leonetta asked, as she mentally commented on the singular coincidence that both Denis the night before, and Lord Henry now, should choose to speak about this particular aspect of her mother.

"Why, it must have occurred to you," Lord Henry continued, "that youth makes a universal appeal; it is of interest to everybody. Its peculiar fascination makes it a possession to which none can be indifferent. Do you see that? Do you see how youth has the world's eye upon it,--how, not only in its own, but also in all older generations, it meets with the smile of welcome, of interest, of ready affection? All the world over this is so."

"Yes, yes,--I see," cried Leonetta.

"And now look on age! It has an interest indeed, but that interest is localised. It is limited to a circle, frequently to a domestic circle, sometimes only to one member in that circle. People say: Who is this poor old man? Who is this poor old woman? Have they any one who cares for them? And if it is known they have good relatives, then the interest ceases, and the rest of the world is only too glad that their responsibility ends in having made the enquiry. But no one asks: Who is this poor young man? or who is this poor flapper, has she any one that cares for her?"

Leonetta laughed.

"You feel," pursued Lord Henry, "that old people must have someone of their own to love them, because the rest of the world does not do so spontaneously. The old people and sentimentalists who speak of every age having its beauty, are humbugs. Now your mother is the very reverse of one of these humbugs. She knows well enough that old age has only a local, a limited interest, and rather than abandon the universal interest that youth can claim, she fights like a Trojan to retain her youthful beauty. The bravery with which she is now holding old age at arm's length, and defying it to embrace her is perfectly amazing. It shows her infinite good taste; it shows how deeply she has understood the difference between youth and age. It is one of the most thrilling things I have ever witnessed."

Leonetta laughed ecstatically. "Yes, yes, I see!" she exclaimed. "You put it in a new light. Bravo, old Peachy!--you make me feel I want to run home and kiss her." And then she added, as if it were an afterthought: "Except that she hates being kissed."

Cleopatra was thoughtful. "Yes, I understand all that," she said after a while; "I have understood that for some time,--at least dimly. But then, this local interest which you say old age excites, this local or domestic appeal which it makes,--will not Edith ever feel that?"

"Ah, don't you see, Miss Delarayne," Lord Henry replied, "this local interest, this domestic interest on which old age depends, has to be very strong, very intense, very highly concentrated, to make any one as tasteful as your mother gladly relinquish the other interest."

"Very, very intense," Cleopatra repeated. "Do you mean that in Baby--I mean Leo--and myself it is not sufficiently intense?"

Leonetta looked solemnly up into Lord Henry's face to catch every word of his reply, and in doing so even forgot to notice that there were young men on the road observing her.

"Don't misunderstand me," Lord Henry pleaded. "I do not wish to imply that you two girls do not love and cherish your mother. In fact, as I have just been saying, the zeal with which you help her in every way to achieve the end she wishes to achieve is most highly creditable. But, have you ever known, have you ever witnessed at close quarters, the worship of a devoted son for his mother? Have you ever been anywhere near two people, mother and son, who have been bound by that most unique and most passionate of affections, which has made the local interest of old age seem sufficiently vast and full to reconcile the mother to a happy relinquishment of that other interest,--the interest the world feels in youth?"

Still Leonetta gazed into Lord Henry's face, and still Cleopatra kept her eyes thoughtfully on the ground.

"Because, I remind you," Lord Henry concluded, "that this domestic interest, since it is so circumscribed and restricted, has to be proportionately more intense than the interest the whole world feels in youth. And that intensity a son is capable, I think, of giving his mother."

"Have you ever witnessed that?" Leonetta enquired.

Lord Henry laughed in his irresistible and ironical way. But it was obvious that genuine mirth was not his mood.