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."

"And have I got it?" asked Lewis, smiling.

"You meet life with a calmness and deftness unusual in a boy," said
Leighton, gravely.

"I--I don't know," began Lewis. "I've never been educated. By the tim