Too Old for Dolls: A Novel

by Anthony M. Ludovici

It is now necessary to turn the clock back about three quarters of an hour, in order to follow the movements of Lord Henry from the moment when he left the terrace of Brineweald Park.

It was a sure instinct that made him lose no time in trying to discover Cleopatra's whereabouts; for, from the very first, the coincidence of her sudden indisposition, following upon his behaviour with Leonetta in the wood that morning, had struck him as a little too strange to be accepted without suspicion. She had looked so well the whole morning, and had appeared to be enjoying the walk quite as much as any of the others. Knowing, moreover, the passionate girl she was, he could only fear the worst if she had been told anything; and, since any disaster that might follow would be due to a miscalculation on his part, he felt it incumbent upon him to do everything in his power to repair the mistake he had made.

In that brief moment in the woods with Leonetta, he had wished to achieve but one object,—to show Denis plainly and finally that Leonetta could not be his. He wished so unmistakably to register this fact upon Denis's mind, that he felt it would simplify matters enormously if that young man could, with his own eyes, see something which, while it would abate his ardour, would also show him how easy and how devoid of dignity had been the game he had been playing for the last fortnight at Brineweald.

The sudden return of Denis to help to find the bangle had been the opportunity. Unfortunately, Lord Henry felt that he had not reckoned sufficiently with two possibilities, each of which, in itself, was serious enough: on the one hand, Denis's return to Brineweald long before himself, and on the other, the confirmation that Vanessa and Tribe might offer to Denis's report, if Denis chose to tell. First of all, in the few seconds he had had to consider the matter, it had struck him as extremely improbable that Denis would either have the time or the inclination to tell Cleopatra direct, before he himself had had a chance of speaking to her; and, secondly, he had doubted whether Vanessa and Tribe could actually have seen him embracing Leonetta.

In these circumstances he had taken the risk which he felt he was entitled to take in war; but apparently,—at least so he feared,—he had miscalculated. He had failed to take into account Denis's mad fury, and the extremes to which this might possibly drive him.

He had not once been mistaken in his estimate of the kind of human life with which he was experimenting; for he had correctly anticipated the probable effects that the knowledge of his action would have upon Cleopatra. He had, however, certainly staked upon luck, and, this time, it appeared to have turned against him.

Thus he was tormented by the gravest qualms as he made his way to "The Fastness," and when Wilmott informed him that Miss Cleopatra had not been seen since she had gone with the rest of Mrs. Delarayne's party in Sir Joseph's car, early that morning, his worst fears were confirmed.

"Would you mind looking all over the house?" he said. "It is just possible she may have come in without your noticing."

The girl obeyed and even invited him to join in the search. Their efforts, however, revealed no trace of Cleopatra.

Lord Henry was at his wits' end. He began to be filled by a secret feeling of guilt, a feeling that he had gone too far. He had been foolhardy; he had exceeded his duty. Nothing remained to fortify him, in his present tragic dilemma, but the conviction that he had acted all along as if the affair, far from being a matter simply for Cleopatra's family, had been his personal business, his intimate concern.