he others were
playing tennis, Lord Henry invited Leonetta and her sister to go with
him to Headstone to look at Sir Joseph's prize cattle there.

Lord Henry's invitation to Leonetta constituted the first real attention
he had paid her since he had been down at Brineweald, and she stammered
her acceptance with ill-concealed excitement. Even with Cleo as one of
the party, her curiosity regarding him was too great for her to forego
this opportunity. She therefore begged to be allowed a moment to put on
her hat, and when she returned at the end of five minutes, it was
obvious that she had taken unusual pains with her appearance.

The three turned at a leisurely pace up the road towards Headstone, and
as Miss Mallowcoid saw their hats vanish on the other side of the hedge,
she announced the fact of their departure to her sister.

Mrs. Delarayne was well aware of what was happening, and was not too
happy about it. Lord Henry seemed lost to her.

"Oh, leave me alone, can't you!" she snarled. "Can't you see I'm
reading?" and the offensiveness of her manner seemed so unaccountable to
Miss Mallowcoid, that this lady got up in a state of high perturbation,
and deliberately stalked over to the marquee, where for a while she sat
alone brooding over the indignity she had suffered.

The trio on their way to Headstone were finding it uphill work to
discover some lasting and common subject of interest with which to
entertain each other; many topics were started, but the conversation was
always desultory, and Lord Henry, try how he might, failed to make it
general. He felt as a mariner might feel who was trying to harmonise two
compasses, one of which had an error to the west, and the other an error
to the east. At last, when they were on their way home, having given up
all hope of success, he decided that the only way was to talk himself,
and this he proceeded to do with his customary enthusiasm. The subject
was suggested by Leonetta, who asked how it was that though they had
heard of him so frequently during the last five or six years, neither
Cleopatra nor she herself had ever seen him. This introduced them to
the subject of Mrs. Delarayne, which Lord Henry seized with alacrity.

"You have no idea," he said, "how I admire the perfectly splendid way
you girls deal with your mother."

Leonetta looked up and scrutinised his face. She thought he must be
joking.

"You are so immensely sensible and sympathetic, when it would be so