Natalie had not followed the turn of his emotion.  She broke in upon his thought and brought him back.

“I never talked to your dad, but—­we knew each other, we liked each other.”

Lewis started.

“That’s funny,” he said.

“Is it?” said Natalie.  “I suppose it sounds odd, but—­”

“No,” interrupted Lewis, “that’s not what I mean.  It’s odd because H lne said just the same thing about you.  She said you were great friends—­that women didn’t have to know each other to be friends.”

“They don’t have to know men to be friends, either,” said Natalie, “unless—­”

“Unless what?”

“Unless they love them.  If they love them, they’ve got to know them through and through to be friends.  Love twists a woman’s vision.  Lots of women are ruined because they can’t wait to see through and through.”

“Why, Nat,” said Lewis, “you’re talking like dad.  Dad never talks—­talked—­without turning on the light.”

“Doesn’t he?” said Natalie.

Lewis nodded.

“There are people that think of dad as a bad man.  He has told me so.  But he wasn’t bad to me or to H lne or Nelton or Old William, and we’re the ones that knew him best.”

For a time they were silent, then Natalie said:  “Lew, you’re older than you ever were before.  Is it just losing your dad?”

Lewis shook his head.

“No,” he said, “it wasn’t that.  I finished growing up just after I got back to London.  I’m not the only thing that has grown.  My work—­sometime I’ll show you my work before and after.  I wish I could have shown it to dad,—­I wish I could have told him that I’ve said good-by to Folly.”

“Good-by to Folly?” cried Natalie, with a leap of the heart.  Then her heart sank back.  “You mean you’ve said good-by to foolishness, to childish things?”

“Both,” said Lewis.  “Folly Delaires and childish things.”

“Why?” asked Natalie, shortly.

“Because,” said Lewis, “it was given me to see her through and through.”

“And now?” breathed Natalie, drawing slightly away from him lest he hear the thumping of her heart.

Lewis turned his head and looked at her.  The flush was back in her cheeks, her eyes were wide and staring far away, her moist lips were half open, and her bosom rose and fell in the long, halting swell of tremulous breath.

There is a beauty that transcends the fixed bounds of flesh, that leaps to the eye of love when all the world is blind.  The flower that opens slowly, the face grown dear through half of life, needs no tenure in memory.  It lives.  Tears can not dim its beauty nor age destroy its grace, for the vision is part of him who sees.

The vision came to Lewis.  His arms trembled to grip Natalie, to outrage her trust, and seize too lightly the promise of the years.