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 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."