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H lne heard Lewis's tale from start to finish with only one interruption. It took her five minutes to find out just what it was Folly had said in her own tongue to the little cockney in his, and even at that there were one or two words she had to guess. When she thought she had them all, she sat up straight and laughed. Lewis stared at her. "Do you think it's funny?" he demanded.
At Lewis's first words she had flushed; then she turned pale, deathly pale, and steadied herself with one hand on the back of a chair. She put the other hand to the side of her head and pressed it there. "That's it," she said; "he's he's not himself." Then she faced Lewis. "Lew, that's my that's Lord Derl that you saw." "H lne!" cried Lew, putting out quick hands toward her.
LEIGHTON'S heart ached for his boy as he watched him go, and during the next few weeks Iris pity changed into an active anxiety. In setting that trap he could call it nothing else for Lew, he and H lne had put forces into conflict that were not amenable to any light control. Lewis had passed his word. Leighton knew he would never go back on it.
If she is, she'll grow finer and finer and you will, too, and years and time and place will fade away before the greatest battle-cry the world has ever known 'We're partners." H lne turned her eyes away. "But if you're not really pals for always, the one that doesn't care will grow coarse. If it's Folly, her past will seize upon her.
I want you to know that you didn't do it in vain. Six months ago, if I had found Folly out, I would have gone to the dogs, taken her on her own terms, and said good-by to honor and my word to dad. It's it's from that that you have saved me." H lne waved her hand deprecatingly. "I did little enough for you, Lew. Not half what I would willingly have done.
"I hear," he repeated, "and I'll I'll see you through." Lewis gripped the extended hand with all his strength, then he sat down and chatted eagerly for half an hour. He did not see that his father was tired. "Go and tell H lne," he said when Lewis at last paused. "Telephone her that you want to talk to her." H lne was on the point of going out.
By the time H lne came back, Lewis not only knew his liberation, but had begun to bless Folly as we bless the stroke of lightning that strikes at us and just misses. He complied with H lne's summons promptly, but with a deliberation that surprised him, for it was not until he was on the way to her house that he realized that he had no troubles to pour out to her ear.
Nevertheless, a sense of peace fell upon him as he entered the familiar room of cheerful blue chintzes and light. H lne was as he had ever known her. She gave him a slow, measuring welcome, and then sat back and let him talk. Woman's judgment may err in clinging to the last word, but never is her finesse at fault in ceding the first.
He had had an impulse to write to Natalie, even to go to her; but there was a fineness in his nature that stopped him, a shame born of the realization of his blindness and of the pity in which H lne and Leighton and perhaps even Natalie must have held him.
Lewis leaped forward with a cry. "H lne! H lne!" She held him off. "Don't touch me!" she gasped. "I only wanted you to see the whole burden of love. Now go, dear. Please go. I'm I'm very tired." Lewis, walking rapidly toward the flat, was thinking over all that Lady Derl had said and was trying to bring Folly into line with his thoughts. He had never pictured Folly old. He tried now and failed.
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