When Lewis reached the flat on a Saturday night, he did not have to tell his father that something wonderful had happened.  Leighton saw it in his face—­a face suddenly become more boyish than it had ever been before.  They rushed feverishly through dinner, for Lewis’s mood was contagious.  Then they went into the living-room, and straight for the two big leather chairs which, had they lacked that necessary measure of discretion which Nelton had assigned to them, might have told of many a battle of the mind with the things that are.

“Well, Boy,” said Leighton, “what is it?”

“Dad,” cried Lewis, with beaming face, “I’ve found the woman—­the all-embracing woman.”

Leighton’s mind wandered back to the tales of Lewis’s little pal Natalie.

“Tell me about her—­again,” he said genially.

“Again!” cried Lewis.  “But you’ve never heard of her—­not from me, anyway.”

“What’s her name?” asked Leighton, half aroused.

“Her name,” said Lewis, smiling absently into the fire, “is Folly—­Folly Delaires.”

Leighton was a trained stalker of dangerous game.  Surprise never startled him into movement.  It stilled him.  Old Ivory had once said of him that he could make his heart stop beating at the smell of elephant; which is quite a different thing from having your heart stop beating on its own hook.  When Lewis said, “Folly—­Folly Delaires,” Leighton suddenly became intensely still.  He remained still for so long that Lewis looked up.

“Well, Dad, what Is it?” he asked, still smiling.  “Have you heard of her?”

“Yes,” said Leighton, quietly, “I’ve heard of her.  I’ve even seen her.  She’s a beautiful—­she has a beautiful body.  Tell me just how it happened.”

Then Lewis talked, and Leighton appeared to listen.  He knew all the stages of that via dolorosa too well to have to pay close attention to Lewis’s description, of the first emotional step of man toward man’s surest tribulation.

There was no outburst from Leighton when Lewis finished.  On the contrary, he made an effort to hide his thoughts, and succeeded so well that, had it not been for a touch of bitterness in his smile, Lewis might have been led to think that with this active calm his father would have received the announcement of his son’s choice of any woman.

“Dad,” said Lewis, troubled, “why do you smile like that?”

“I am smiling,” said Leighton, “at the tragedy of philanthropy.  Any man can get; it takes a genius to give.  There are things I’ve got that I’d like to give you now—­on the eve of your greatest trouble.”  Lewis threw up his head in amazement.  He would have protested but, with a half-raised hand, Leighton stilled him.  “No,” he went on, “I don’t expect you to acquire prescience all in a moment, nor do I expect myself to acquire the genius of giving to a sudden need in half an hour.  Let’s let things stand this way.  You love Folly Delaires; I don’t.  I don’t want to be converted, and you don’t.  But one of us has simply got to be, because—­well—­because I like to think we’ve lived too long together in spirit to take to two sides of a fence now.”