nder. "I asked you to stay for a few minutes because
I wanted to consult you on a very delicate matter."

He sat down facing her, and began to tug at the mesh over his brow. He
frowned and blinked rapidly, as was his wont when interested. He
wondered whether this charming and unhappy creature realised how
thoroughly he understood her.

"You know Leonetta is home again," Mrs. Delarayne continued.

Lord Henry nodded.

"She is rather difficult to manage."

He nodded again.

"She is so full of life, so eager, so--well, can you imagine me at
seventeen? Can you picture the mercurial creature I was, with every
sense agog, with every nerve on the _qui vive_?--a dreadful little
person in every way."

Lord Henry chuckled, and gave his forelock one or two unusually rapid
twists.

"Leonetta is if anything worse than I was," Mrs. Delarayne continued,
"for she is of this century. I belonged to the last one. D'you
understand?"

He bowed.

"She is vitality incarnate,--wilful, womanly, vain, beautiful,--not more
beautiful than Cleopatra, but more intrepid, more inquisitive, more
determined to live than her elder sister."

"Have you a photograph of her?" Lord Henry enquired.

Mrs. Delarayne darted across the room, and returned with a large framed
photograph which she handed to her visitor.

"There's the latest. It was taken a month ago."

Lord Henry examined it closely.

"Yes," he said, with his customary gravity in dealing with interesting
questions. "I see. I see now. Well?"

"Can you see the girl she is? Daring,--oh, and can I say it?"

Lord Henry looked up and blinked rapidly again.

"A little--a little----"

"A little inclined to temperamental precocity?" Lord Henry enquired.

Mrs. Delarayne, very much relieved, nodded quickly.

"That's exactly it,--that's just what I meant to say,--that's it
precisely. Oh how accurately that describes her!"

The elegant widow was uncommonly agitated and anxious. Lord Henry noted
her state of mind, and wondered what it signified.

"I feel--people tell me,--I feel I ought perhaps to tell Leonetta----"

"You are wondering," Lord Henry interrupted, hoping to help her,
"whether it is your duty to enlighten the child at all concerning----"

She sat down beside him. "Yes, I am," she said quickly.

"Has she asked any questions?" Lord Henry demanded, allowing his hand
for a moment to hang motionless from his mesh of hair and glancing up at
the cornice.

"No, I scarcely ex