easy
for you to be heartless."

"Heartless--what do you mean?" Cleopatra asked.

"Well, you see, the whole thing is so simple,--Heavens, it is almost too
simple to explain!" He had that fiery way of speaking which gave to
everything he said the magic impress of vital significance.

"You see," he pursued, "your mother is a really great-hearted woman, and
you girls seem to have realised it and tried to live up to her. It is
magnificent of you."

Both girls were deeply interested; but Cleopatra kept her eyes on the
ground.

"She is clear-sighted and honest enough to see the truth about youth and
age, and makes no bones about it. She doesn't pretend that there's any
particular beauty in old age. God!--she's one in a thousand!"

"What truth about youth and age?" Leonetta asked, as she mentally
commented on the singular coincidence that both Denis the night before,
and Lord Henry now, should choose to speak about this particular aspect
of her mother.

"Why, it must have occurred to you," Lord Henry continued, "that youth
makes a universal appeal; it is of interest to everybody. Its peculiar
fascination makes it a possession to which none can be indifferent. Do
you see that? Do you see how youth has the world's eye upon it,--how,
not only in its own, but also in all older generations, it meets with
the smile of welcome, of interest, of ready affection? All the world
over this is so."

"Yes, yes,--I see," cried Leonetta.

"And now look on age! It has an interest indeed, but that interest is
localised. It is limited to a circle, frequently to a domestic circle,
sometimes only to one member in that circle. People say: Who is this
poor old man? Who is this poor old woman? Have they any one who cares
for them? And if it is known they have good relatives, then the interest
ceases, and the rest of the world is only too glad that their
responsibility ends in having made the enquiry. But no one asks: Who is
this poor young man? or who is this poor flapper, has she any one that
cares for her?"

Leonetta laughed.

"You feel," pursued Lord Henry, "that old people must have someone of
their own to love them, because the rest of the world does not do so
spontaneously. The old people and sentimentalists who speak of every age
having its beauty, are humbugs. Now your mother is the very reverse of
one of these humbugs. She knows well enough that old age has only a
local, a limited interest, and rather than abandon the universal