queenly presence, her
passionate confession, and the thought of what it must have cost her. He
felt a primitive and violent impulse to perform miracles for the girl
whose health and happiness, out of blind friendship for her mother, he
had undertaken to protect. He even felt prepared to go to greater
lengths in rescuing her self-esteem than he would ever have dared to go
with other people. For, to become normal again, he knew that her
self-esteem must be revived.

Suddenly, in the midst of his meditations, the sound of somebody
approaching from the direction of the house made him turn his head. It
was Mrs. Delarayne, and, some distance behind her, the whole of "The
Fastness" and Brineweald Park party.

He rose with alacrity and, seizing her by the arm, led her across the
lawn to the far end of the garden.

"Quick," he said, "before the others join us."

She followed, looking up at him with the deepest interest.

"Do you want Leonetta to marry Malster?" he demanded.

"Oh no, most certainly not!" cried the widow with angry emphasis.
"Anything but that. I have taken the most profound dislike to him. That
must be avoided at all costs. The child doesn't know her own mind.
Besides, he doesn't deserve her, and Cleopatra's feelings have surely
been outraged enough. No, most emphatically not. She would only learn to
despise him in a couple of months. In fact, I believe Sir Joseph is
dismissing him from Bullion's."

"I thought you would take that view," he said. "You are not forgetting,
I suppose, that they are very much in love with each other."

"In love!" she exclaimed. "Why, Leonetta would fall in love with a
stuffed owl at present, provided it could dance attendance on her."

He grunted. "Now one thing more. Do you agree with me that, beautiful,
fascinating, and bewitching as Leonetta undoubtedly is, she would be all
the better for realising for once that she cannot have everything her
own way?"

"She's an over-confident little hussy," ejaculated Mrs. Delarayne. "I've
tried to make her feel that myself, but parents are not much good at
that sort of thing. Children think we do it out of spite, you know.
That's what I used to think of my own mother."

"It would make her deeper, more reflective, more desirable."

"Certainly," agreed the widow.

"Now let us go back," said the young man, and they returned to the
others who had settled themselves round the marquee.

"Ah, here's Lord Henry!" Vanessa cried. "We'll