"Here you are!" said Stephen. "I've brought one for you."
She smiled gratefully at him. "That was thoughtful of you," she said.
And Stephen, feeling somehow that, since her affair with Lord Henry that morning, Leonetta had gone over at one step to that vast majority of worldly females who, in his boyish imagination, appeared to him mistresses of the great secrets of life, blushed slightly and turned his head away.
CHAPTER XVIII
Sir Joseph, having risen from his post-prandial snooze and found Mrs. Delarayne, had led that lady to the drawing-room, and was now engaged in trying to convince her of the general wisdom of all that she had been hearing from her sister.
"I tell you, my dear Edith," he said, "that I have considerable difficulty in believing that your Lord Henry is the great man you say he is."
"Of course you have," she cried. "It is always difficult to believe that a really great man could ever deign to cross our threshold, much less shake hands with us! We feel we are too mediocre for that!"
"I don't mean that!" he said, shaking his head helplessly, although he had not understood her real meaning.