Part 48 (1/2)

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.

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 c.o.c.kney 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.

”Oh, no, of course not,” gasped Lady Derl, trying to gulp down her mirth. ”Not at all.” And then she laughed again.

Lewis waited solemnly for her to finish, then he told her of some of the things he had heard at the club.

”H lne,” he finished, ”I want you to know that I don't only see what a fool I was. I see more than that. I see what you and dad sacrificed to my blindness. 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. But--but your dad--I wrote you I'd seen him just for an hour at Port Said. Your dad, Lew, he's given you all he had.”

”What do you mean?” asked Lewis, troubled.

”Nothing,” said H lne, her thoughts wandering; ”nothing that telling will show you.” She turned back to him and smiled. ”Let's talk about your pal Natalie. We're great friends.”

”Friends?” said Lewis. ”Have you been writing to her?”

”Oh, no,” said H lne. ”Women don't have to know each other to be friends.”

”Why, there's nothing more to tell about Natalie,” said Lewis.

H lne looked him squarely in the eyes.

”Tell me honestly,” she said; ”haven't you wanted to go back to Natalie?”

Lewis flushed. He rose and picked up his hat and stick.

”'You can give a new hat to a king, but it isn't everybody that will take your cast-off clothes,' That's one of dad's, of course.”

CHAPTER LII

Through that winter Lewis worked steadily forward to a goal that he knew his father could not cavil at. He knew it instinctively. His grasp steadied to expression with repression, or, as one of his envious, but honest, compet.i.tors put it, genius had bowed to sanity.

It is usual to credit these rebirths in individual art to some great grief, but no great grief had come to Lewis. His work fulfilled its promise in just such measure as he had fulfilled himself. In as much as he had matured, in so much had his art. Man is not ripened by a shock, but by those elements that develop him to the point of feeling and knowing the shock when it comes to him. In a drab world, drab would have been Lewis's end; but, little as he realized it, his world had not been drab.

Three steady, but varying, lights had shone upon him. The influence of Natalie, as soft and still as reflected light; of H lne, worldly before the world, but big of heart; and of Leighton, who had been judged in all things that he might judge, had drawn Lewis up above his self-chosen level, given sight to his eyes, and reduced Folly to the proportions of a little final period to the paragraph of irresponsible youth.

To maturity Lewis had added a gravity that had come to him with the realization that in distancing himself from youth he had also unwittingly drawn away from the hearts that had done most toward bringing him emanc.i.p.ation. He had no psychological turn of mind. He could not penetrate the sudden reserve that had fallen upon his father or the apparent increasing distraction with which H lne met his visits.

He did not know that it is in youth and in age that hearts attain their closest contact and that the soul that finds itself, generally does so in solitude.