"Oh yes, I know," Leonetta replied with unexpected warmth; "and they fade quickly afterwards. That's what everybody says." It was clear that for some obscure reasons, she was very much attached to Vanessa Vollenberg. "But Mrs. Vollenberg," she continued, "is the most beautiful woman in the world. She has been painted by every great artist in Europe. So she can't have faded much." "How long do you want Vanessa to stay?" Leonetta suggested that her friend might go to Brineweald with them for a fortnight; Mrs. Delarayne said that it might be three weeks if she chose, and the girl bounded towards her mother and embraced her. "Oh Peachy, my own Peachy,--that is sweet of you," she exclaimed, "you are forgiven for not coming to the Claude hag to-morrow." One of the points in Cleopatra's nature that greatly endeared her to her parent, was that she scarcely ever kissed, and when she did so, it was delicately, with a respectful consideration for her mother's facial toilet. Moreover, she never, in any circumstances, disarranged her mother's hair. "Are they well off?" Mrs. Delarayne asked, easing a ringlet of hair tenderly back into its position near her ear. "If you mean the Vollenbergs," Leonetta answered, "they're as rich as you and Sir Joseph knocked into one." Her mother protested. "Oh, very well. He owns a whole quarter of Hull, and has a West Indian Copra business into the bargain." Leonetta did not know what "copra" was, but she thought it sounded sufficiently like a precious metal to suggest immense wealth. Later in the evening, Mrs. Delarayne and Cleopatra were alone in the former's bedroom. "I have a feeling," Cleopatra was saying, "that I don't love Denis sufficiently to go mad about him. You know what I mean: he may be the best specimen of manhood who has ever crossed this threshold, but he does not electrify me." "That's very sound," her mother rejoined with unusual emphasis. "There's no need to be electrified by the man one marries." "Yes, but I feel that one ought,--I mean that seeing that I could,--you know,--if one is going to be something to a man, one feels that one would like to be electrified by him." Mrs. Delarayne deposited her voluminous transformation lovingly upon the dressing-table,--Cleo was such an intimate friend!