Gradually it dawned upon her that Lewis was really helpless and terribly alone.  In that moment she took charge of him as a duck takes charge of an orphaned chick.  On succeeding evenings she led him to the water, but she did not try to make him swim.

Parents still comfort themselves with the illusion that they can choose safe guardians for their young.  As a matter of fact, guardians of innocence are allotted by Fate.  When Fate is kind, she allots the extremes, a guardian who has never felt a sensation or one who has tired of all sensations.  The latter adds wisdom to innocence, subtracts it from bliss, and—­becomes an ideal.

Fate was kind to Lewis in handing him over to Cellette at the tragic age.  Nature had shown him much; Cellette showed him the rest.  She took him as a passenger through all the side-shows of life.  She was tired of payments in flesh and blood.  She found her recompense in teaching him how to talk, walk, eat, take pleasure in a penny ride on a river boat or on top of a bus, and in spending his entire allowance to their best joint profit.

In return Lewis received many a boon.  He was no longer alone.  He was introduced as an equal to the haunts of the gay world of embryonic art—­the only world that has ever solved the problem of being gay without money.  From the first he was assumed to belong to Cellette.  How much of the assault, the jeers, the buffoonery, the downright evil of initiation, he was saved by this assumption he never knew.  Cellette knew, but her tongue was held by shame.  All her training had taught her to be ashamed of “being good.”  If ever the secret of their astounding innocence had got out, professional pride would have forced her to ruin Lewis, body and soul, without a moment’s hesitation.

Lewis also learned French—­a French that rippled along mostly over shallows, but that had deep pools of art technic, and occasionally flew up and slapped you in the face with a fleck of well-aimed argot.

Weeks, months, passed before Leighton appeared on the scene, summoned by a scribbled note from Le Brux.  When greetings were over, Leighton asked: 

“Well, what is it this time?  How is the boy getting along?  Is he going to be a sculptor?”

“You are wise to ask all your questions at once,” said Le Brux.  “You know I shall talk just as I please.  Your boy, just as you said he would, has attacked me in the heart.  He is a most entertaining babe.  I am no longer wet nurse.  Somebody with the attributes has supplanted me—­Cellette.”

“H—­m—­m!” said Leighton.

Le Brux held up a ponderous hand.

“Not too fast,” he said.  “The lady assures me the babe is still on the bottle.  Such being the case, I sent for you.  They are inseparable.  They have put off falling in love so long that, when they do, it will prove a catastrophe for one of them.  Take him away for a while.  Distort his concentrated point of view.”