h she turned every
circumstance into a "curtain" for her own apotheosis, while it fired the
proud Cleopatra to ever fresh efforts at successful competition,--efforts
which were proving tremendously exhausting,--left Vanessa and Agatha in a
state not unlike a suspension of hostilities. They simply waited. Of all
the men, Denis Malster was certainly the only one that a girl could have
been expected to make a struggle for, and since he appeared to be entirely
hypnotised by Leonetta, the remaining two, one of whom, in Agatha's case,
was a brother, seemed to invite only a Platonic relationship of games and
sports.

It is true that Guy Tyrrell felt he could have gone to any lengths with
the fascinating, voluptuous Jewess; but he had the inevitable defects of
his "clean-mindedness," and knew as little how to engage the interest of
a thoroughly matriculated girl as to rouse enthusiasm for botany in a
cat.

The first walk they had taken with the three young men and Cleopatra and
her sister had been typical of much that followed.

In the middle of a conversation in which Vanessa's native Jewish wit was
beginning to tell against the more homely gifts of the rest of the
party, Leonetta would suddenly fall back, stand in an attitude of rapt
attention over a brook, a well, a wild flower, a plank bridge, a pool,
or anything; and, at a signal from her, the three men of the party would
quickly rally to her halting place, and enter heartily into whatever
spirit the object contemplated was supposed to stimulate.

It was usually the merest trifle that caused her thus to arrest for a
moment the forward movement of her companions, and to interrupt a
conversation to boot; but Vanessa alone had the penetration to see the
unfailing instinct for power, the unflagging determination to be the
centre of attention, which prompted this simple strategy, on Leonetta's
part; and rather than compete with it,--seeing that it was practised
with all the usual efficiency of unconsciousness,--she saved herself the
vexation of possible defeat by yielding quietly to Leonetta the
supremacy she apparently insisted upon having. Thus, while she kept a
steady eye upon Denis Malster, whose manner had captivated her from the
start, she was content, or rather discontent, to note step by step Guy
Tyrrell's blundering innocence in attempted courtship.

Agatha, accustomed as she was to the role of padding in life, fell back
on her devoted brother, and used such influ