“Oh, please don’t ever!” cried the lady, turning to Lewis.  “I’ll give you money to tip him.”  She turned back to Leighton.  “They’re so hard to get with legs, Glen.”

“Legs be hanged!” said Leighton.  “Our age is trading civility for legs.  The face that welcomes you to a house should be benign——­”

“There you go,” broke in the lady.  “If you’d think a minute, you would realize that we don’t charter doormen to welcome people, but to keep them out.”  She turned to Lewis.  “But not you, boy.  You may come any time except between nine and ten.  That’s when I have my bath.  What’s your name?  I can’t call you boy forever.”

“Lewis.”

“Well, Lew, you may call me H lne, like your father.  It’ll make me feel even younger than I am.”

“H lne is a pretty name,” said Lewis.

“None of that, young man,” said Leighton.  “You’ll call H lne my Lady.”

“That’s a pretty name, too,” said Lewis.

“Yes,” said the lady, rising and holding out her hand, “call me that—­at the door.”

“Dad,” said Lewis as they walked back to the flat, “does she live all alone in that big house?”

Leighton came out of a reverie.

“That lady, Lew, is Lady H lne Derl.  She is the wife of Lord Derl.  You won’t see much of Lord Derl, because he spends most of his time in a sort of home for incurables.  His hobby is faunal research.  In other words, he’s a drunkard.  Bah!  We won’t talk any more about that.”

CHAPTER XVIII

A few months later, when Lewis had very much modified his ideas of London, he was walking with his father in the park at the hour which the general English fitness of things assigns to the initiated.  A very little breaking in and a great deal of tailoring had gone a long way with Lewis.  Men looked at father and son as though they thought they ought to recognize them even if they didn’t.  Women turned kindly eyes upon them.

The morning after Lady Derl took Lewis into her carriage in the park she received three separate notes from female friends demanding that she “divvy up.”  Knowing women in general and the three in special, she prepared to comply.  Often Lewis and his father had been summoned by a scribbled note for pot-luck with Lady Derl; but this time it was a formal invitation, engraved.

Lewis read his card casually.  His face lighted up.  Leighton read his with deeper perception, and frowned.

“Already!” he grunted.  Then he said:  “When you’ve finished breakfast, come to my den.  I want to talk to you.”

Lewis found his father sitting like a judge on the bench, behind a great oak desk he rarely used.  An envelope, addressed, lay before him.  He rang for Nelton and sent it out.

“Sit down,” he said to Lewis.  “Where did you get your education?  By education I don’t mean a knowledge of knives, forks, and fish-eaters.  That’s from Ann Leighton, of course.  Nor do I mean the power of adding two to two or reciting A B C D, etc.  By education a gentleman means skill in handling life.”