irritably.

"If you please, mum, will you come and see Miss Cleopatra; she's fallen
down in the billiard-room."

"Fallen down in the billiard-room?" everybody repeated.

The whole party were on their legs in an instant.

"Now, what are you all going to do?" cried Mrs. Delarayne, never more
herself than when a heavy demand was laid upon her self-possession.
"Please remain where you are, and get on with your tea. I'll go and see
what's happened. Agatha!"

Mrs. Delarayne and Agatha, followed by Wilmott, went back to the house,
and, as they went, the maid explained that it was a wonder Miss
Cleopatra had not killed herself, as her head "was quite close up
against the fender."

* * * * *

That evening, on the terrace of Brineweald Park, where the whole party
had dined, Mrs. Delarayne and Sir Joseph sat solemnly talking.

"You will have to do something, Joseph," the widow was saying. "He's
certainly in your power. Convey to him by some means that he cannot play
fast and loose in this way. He accepted the rise of two hundred on the
understanding that he would marry."

"Well, my dear Edith, I can't exactly make him marry, can I?" Sir Joseph
protested.

"But he has not even proposed yet!" the lady cried.

Sir Joseph grunted.

"Instead, if you please, he is making a fool of himself with Leo, and
turning her into an insufferable little prig."

"Not really!"

"Really!"

Sir Joseph grunted again.

"It's making Cleopatra quite ill. Agatha says it is, and I'm sure she's
right. She fainted in the billiard-room this afternoon and her head was
within an inch of the fender. The poor girl almost killed herself.
Besides, I hate a child to have her head turned by a man of thirty. It's
such easy going for him, and she's too young to know the difference
between an actor and a coachman."

"I'll see what I can do," said the baronet, stirring himself a little.
"But you'll admit the position is delicate."

"It's so absurd, because Leonetta has not got the marks of the cradle
off her back yet."

"A child as fascinating as her dear mother," Sir Joseph interposed,
taking the widow's hand.

She brushed his fingers from her. "I've lost patience with him," she
cried. "What is it makes these young Englishmen always abandon
full-blown maturity for flapperdom? I suppose it is the tradition of
their manufacturing race to worship raw material."

"Oh, he's not in love with her," Sir Joseph objected.