Leonetta was home again and the old house in Kensington felt the change acutely. The stairs creaked in a manner almost indignant; doors which for months had disported themselves with quiet dignity, manifested a sudden and youthful tendency to slam; Palmer, the parlour-maid could never be found, except at the heels of her youngest mistress, who seemed to have requisitioned her entire services; while a fresh young voice, as imperious as it was melodious, could be heard on almost every floor at the same time, calling the stately rooms back to life again, and shivering the cobwebs of monotony as it were by acoustic principles alone.

The expression of the kindly maiden aunt, who, after having played for some while with a boisterous and powerful young nephew, gradually realises that he is becoming too rough for her, is, as everybody knows, one of tremulous expectancy, in which a half-frightened flickering smile plays only a deceptive and scarcely convincing part in concealing the feelings of anxiety and disapproval that lie behind it.

Now there was, as we have seen, little of the maiden aunt in Mrs. Delarayne's disposition, and yet this is precisely the expression which, from the moment of Leonetta's arrival at King's Cross, had fastened upon her features. It was the look of one who, though anxious to humour a youthful relative as far as possible, was nevertheless determined that the young creature's pranks should not be allowed to extend to incendiarism, personal assault and battery, homicide, or anything equally upsetting. It scarcely requires description: the brows are permanently slightly raised, the eyes are kept steadily upon the youthful relative in question in mingled astonishment and fear, while there is the aforesaid agitated smile, which threatens at any moment to assume the hard and petulant lines of impatient reproach.

Leonetta had quite properly insisted upon a completely new outfit. She had not "unpacked" in the accepted sense. She had simply emptied her boxes into the dust-bin. Some of her things, it is true, had fallen to Palmer, and to Wilmott, her mother's maid, but very few of them, indeed, had she been willing to return to her wardrobe or her chests of drawers.

No one could take exception to this procedure. It was perfectly right and proper. It was the way it was done, as if it had been a forgone and incontrovertible conclusion, that unnerved Mrs. Delarayne, and drove Cleopatra, more abashed than indignant, to the quietest corner of the house for peace and solitude.

Obviously Leonetta had as yet received no check from life, no threat of an obstacle, or worse still a snub. Her pride pranced with an assurance, a certainty, that was at once baffling and unbaffled. In the presence of her sister's unbroken and unshaken will and resolute assertion of her smallest rights, Cleopatra shrank as before the force of an elemental upheaval. Her tottering self-confidence swayed ominously in the neighbourhood of the younger girl, and it was with alarm and helplessness in her eyes, that she sought a refuge where she could breathe undisturbed.

In the library she dropped desperately into a chair, and her glance ran nervously up and down the bookshelves, while her ears listened stealthily for echoes of the voice that was subordinating the house.

She had forgotten during these blissful months how beautiful her sister was. Some mysterious power in her, that found it easy to forget these things, had even led her memory to form quite a moderate estimate of Leonetta's charms in her absence,—even her sister's telling tricks with her hair had been completely banished from her mind.

Cleopatra rose and walked to the fire-place. On the mantelpiece, she knew, there was a photograph of herself at Leonetta's age. She felt she wanted to examine this record of her adolescence. She was groping for strength: she wished to fortify herself.

She drew the photograph towards her. No, she had not changed so very much. Only something inside her seemed to have grown less tense, less self-confident. Also, she had not had Leonetta's advantages,—advantages that she herself had been chiefly instrumental in securing for her younger sister. More arts than that of wielding the French tongue are learned in Paris. Apparently she never had arranged her hair quite as Baby arranged hers.

And then, all at once, the door opened, and she pushed the photograph violently from her, so that it fell with a clatter on the marble of the mantelpiece. It was her mother; and as the door opened and shut, the sound of Leonetta's voice upstairs swelled and died away again.

"Oh, it's you," Cleopatra cried, setting up the fallen frame.

Mrs. Delarayne walked to the window, spasmodically drew back a curtain, and then turned to face her daughter.

"She's amazingly high-spirited, isn't she?"

"Extraordinary!" Cleopatra exclaimed.

"Can you go with her to Mlle. Claude's to-morrow to order those frocks? You see, I have my Inner Light meeting in the afternoon."

"She won't like it."

"What does it matter? She won't listen to my suggestions, so I might just as well stay at home as go with her. She knows exactly what she wants down to the last button."

"Then why can't she go alone?"

"Well,—I don't know," replied Mrs. Delarayne anxiously; "she might perhaps feel that neither of us was taking much interest in her, don't you think?"

"How much are you allowing her?"

"A hundred pounds."

"Edith!"

"My dear,—I could say nothing!"

"But I never had half that sum all at once."

"I know," sighed her mother wearily. "But you can have it now, or more if you want it."

There was a loud drumming of feet, and the door opened.

"Oh, Peachy darling!" Leonetta cried, "you're the very person I wanted to see, and I couldn't think what had become of you."

She was brandishing a paper of the latest Paris fashions in her hand as she skipped to her mother's side.

"You see," she pursued, "this is what I want for my best evening turn-out, I couldn't find it a moment ago." And she proceeded to describe to her mother what the particular confection consisted of.

"Of course they do these things miles better in Paris," she added with a pout.

"No doubt," said Mrs. Delarayne coldly.

"And they're not a scrap more expensive either," Leonetta continued.

"Possibly not," her mother rejoined. Then there was a moment's silence while Leonetta ran rapidly through the newspaper in her hands.

At last Mrs. Delarayne spoke.

"Leo, darling," she began, "would you mind very much if Cleo went with you to-morrow instead of me?"

Leonetta glanced up, scrutinised her mother and sister for a second, and her brow clouded. "Oh, Peachy," she cried at last, "you are a worm!"

Mrs. Delarayne sat down, and fumbled nervously with a brooch at her neck. She realised dimly that she ought to protest against being addressed in this manner by her younger daughter and stared vacantly at Cleopatra.

"You see," she said, "I have my Inner Light meeting."

"Your inner what?" Leonetta exclaimed contemptuously.

A slight flush crept slowly up the widow's neck, and she looked hopelessly in the direction of her elder daughter.

Leonetta laughed. "Inner Light!" she cried. "Peachy, you are getting into funny ways in your old age; now come, aren't you?"

A look of such deep mortification came into Mrs. Delarayne's eyes, that Cleopatra herself felt provoked.

"There's no need to be rude, Baby!" she ejaculated angrily, not realising quite how much of her anger was utterly unconnected with her sister's treatment of their mother.

Leonetta glanced down at her paper in the thoughtful manner of a buck about to butt. For the first time she had perceived clearly that much of which she had not the smallest inkling must have happened during her long absences from home, and that these two women,—her mother and sister,—were united by strangely powerful bonds. Being an intelligent creature, therefore, she decided to postpone the framing of her strategy until she had learned more about the strength that seemed to be constantly combining against her.

She raised her eyes at last, and looked straight into her sister's face.

"I can't think what makes you so dreadfully stuffy," she declared, "surely there's no harm in what I said."

Mrs. Delarayne, who longed only for one thing—that the remark complained about, with its brutal reference to her old age, should not be repeated, and least of all discussed,—here interposed a word or two.

"No, my darling Leo, of course not. You come fresh from school; you are full of new ideas and schemes; and we,—well, we've remained at home."

This observation was perhaps a little feeble, and it also constituted a desertion of Cleopatra, but in any case it seemed to give Leonetta the necessary hint, for she went quite close to her mother and began smoothing her hair. "You must tell me all about the Inner Light some time," she said, "it sounds ripping."

She glanced triumphantly at her sister as she spoke. Half of her action had been completely unconscious. Obviously she felt the need of making one of these women her friend, and instinctively she inclined to the one who appeared to be the more powerful.

"Peachy darling," she continued, "don't you think this white satin frock that the Claude hag is going to make me might be my coming-out frock? It will be new for the early autumn."

Cleopatra gasped, and Mrs. Delarayne gave her a glance full of meaning.

"You see," Leonetta pursued, "it will be the best of the lot, won't it?"

Mrs. Delarayne drew Leonetta towards her with an affectionate gesture, and smiled in that ingratiating manner so necessary to timidity in distress.

"But I didn't know you were to come out this autumn," she protested lamely, not daring to look at Cleopatra, whose attitude she only too shrewdly divined.

"It's ridiculous," Cleopatra exclaimed; "I didn't come out until I was eighteen. You know, Edith, you and father wouldn't hear of making it a moment sooner."

"Yes, but things are a little different now," Leonetta interposed.

"It would be unfair, grossly unfair, Edith," Cleopatra protested, "if you let her come out earlier than I did. Particularly as I did my best to make you and father let me, and you both absolutely refused."

Leonetta was now gently stroking her mother's hair. She would not trust her eyes to look at her sister.

"Well, Peachy," she said, "surely you can't make a fuss about six months, whatever you say, Cleo. After all, I'll be seventeen and a half."

"Any way," Cleopatra snapped, "it won't be right."

"But what can it matter to you?" the younger girl demanded, glaring not too amiably at her sister.

Cleopatra's face coloured a little at this question.

"Oh, nothing," she replied, and she moved towards the door. "I don't care what you do."

"Where are you going to, Cleo dear?" Mrs. Delarayne enquired in a voice fraught with all the sympathy she could not openly express.

"I'm going out to get a breath of air," replied Cleopatra without turning her head; and she swept out of the room, performing as she went those peculiar oscillations of the upper part of her body, which are not unusually adopted by young women who are very much upon their dignity when they retire. The oscillations in question consist in curving the body sideways over small obstacles, such as chairs and tables, at the moment of passing them, as if with an exaggerated effort to combine the utmost care with the utmost rapidity of movement.

Mrs. Delarayne rose and went sadly to the window. Her eyes, full of self-pity, gazed with unwonted indifference at the passers-by. How thankful she would have been to have Mr. Delarayne at her side at this critical moment in her life. There were times when she was not unappreciative of the many advantages of widowhood; but this was not precisely the moment when the bright side of her peculiar situation seemed to be conspicuous. With Leonetta home for good, and Cleo still unmarried, she felt the need of help and advice; and it was significant that, as she became more and more aware of the practical usefulness that the late Mr. Delarayne might have had at this juncture, her thoughts turned rather to Lord Henry than to Sir Joseph Bullion.

She must speak to Lord Henry. He would know how to direct her.

A sound in the room disturbed her meditations. Leonetta, having concluded a further examination of the Paris fashions, had tossed the paper on to the table.

"Peachy darling," she began, with slow deliberation. "May I have a friend to stay with me?"

Mrs. Delarayne continued to gaze into the street. She did not like being called Peachy. She had an indistinct feeling that it sounded vulgar,—why she would have been unable to explain. Nevertheless, since anything was preferable to being called "Mother" at the top of Leonetta's strident soprano in the public highway, and for some reason or other Leonetta would not make use of the name "Edith," she felt that it would perhaps be diplomatic to say nothing.

"Who is she?" she enquired cautiously.

Leonetta was silent for a moment. It was not the question, but the caution that dictated it, that struck the girl as strange.

"Isn't it enough that she is a friend of mine?" she observed.

"Quite, of course!" Mrs. Delarayne hastened to reply. "I only meant,—what is her name, who are her people?"

"Vanessa Vollenberg," answered Leonetta.

"It sounds foreign," was the mother's quiet comment.

"As a matter of fact, it is."

"It sounds a little Jewish."

"She is a Jewess," Leonetta admitted.

Mrs. Delarayne purred approvingly over her remarkable display of insight.

"She's very beautiful and wonderfully clever," Leonetta pursued.

"How old?"

"A year older than I am,—eighteen and a half."

"Jewesses are always pretty at that age," Mrs. Delarayne muttered, glancing at her daughter furtively for a moment.

"Oh yes, I know," Leonetta replied with unexpected warmth; "and they fade quickly afterwards. That's what everybody says."

It was clear that for some obscure reasons, she was very much attached to Vanessa Vollenberg.

"But Mrs. Vollenberg," she continued, "is the most beautiful woman in the world. She has been painted by every great artist in Europe. So she can't have faded much."

"How long do you want Vanessa to stay?"

Leonetta suggested that her friend might go to Brineweald with them for a fortnight; Mrs. Delarayne said that it might be three weeks if she chose, and the girl bounded towards her mother and embraced her.

"Oh Peachy, my own Peachy,—that is sweet of you," she exclaimed, "you are forgiven for not coming to the Claude hag to-morrow."

One of the points in Cleopatra's nature that greatly endeared her to her parent, was that she scarcely ever kissed, and when she did so, it was delicately, with a respectful consideration for her mother's facial toilet. Moreover, she never, in any circumstances, disarranged her mother's hair.

"Are they well off?" Mrs. Delarayne asked, easing a ringlet of hair tenderly back into its position near her ear.

"If you mean the Vollenbergs," Leonetta answered, "they're as rich as you and Sir Joseph knocked into one."

Her mother protested.

"Oh, very well. He owns a whole quarter of Hull, and has a West Indian Copra business into the bargain."

Leonetta did not know what "copra" was, but she thought it sounded sufficiently like a precious metal to suggest immense wealth.

Later in the evening, Mrs. Delarayne and Cleopatra were alone in the former's bedroom.

"I have a feeling," Cleopatra was saying, "that I don't love Denis sufficiently to go mad about him. You know what I mean: he may be the best specimen of manhood who has ever crossed this threshold, but he does not electrify me."

"That's very sound," her mother rejoined with unusual emphasis. "There's no need to be electrified by the man one marries."

"Yes, but I feel that one ought,—I mean that seeing that I could,—you know,—if one is going to be something to a man, one feels that one would like to be electrified by him."

Mrs. Delarayne deposited her voluminous transformation lovingly upon the dressing-table,—Cleo was such an intimate friend!

"Rubbish!" she ejaculated. "Romantic rubbish! How often have I told you girls that provided a man can keep you in comfort and has a clean sweet mouth, it doesn't matter a rap about anything else. Even if he has dirty hands and finger-nails in addition, it doesn't signify;—there's the English Channel and the Atlantic close by to wash them in. But if he hasn't a clean, sweet mouth, a second deluge wouldn't wash it for him. How can you attach so much importance to trifles, when in Denis you have the two first prerequisites in an eminent degree? You are romantic, my dear Cleo. And matrimony is a matter of flesh and blood. When the demands of these are properly attended to, I assure you the rest is mere foolishness. Denis can keep you in comfort, and he has the teeth of an African negro. What more can you want? You cannot go on losing chance after chance through these romantic notions."

"But surely," Cleo objected hopelessly, "a man ought to fire you with something more exciting than the consideration of his means and his dentition!"

"In our class," Mrs. Delarayne rejoined with gravity, "men no longer set fire to anything. Get that out of your mind at once. Modern English civilisation has entirely failed to produce men who can be at once gentlemen and fiery lovers. We have wanted things both ways, and that is why we have failed. We have wanted nice clean-minded men with whom we could walk, talk, and play games freely. But that means men who can exercise self-control. Now, of course, we are certainly free to enjoy men as safe playmates all through our youth; but we are, I'm afraid, also free to be bored with them as husbands for the rest of our lives."