ened to this age. We've outgrown marriage downward. Your
near-sighted people talk of contractual agreements, parity of the sexes,
and of a lot of other drugged panaceas, with the enthusiasm of a hawker
selling tainted bloaters. They don't see that marriage is founded on a
rock set deeper than the laws of man. It's a rock upon which their
jerry-rigged ships of the married state are bound to strike as long as
there's any Old Guard left standing above the surge of leveled
humanity."

"And what's the rock?" asked Lewis.

"A woman's devotion," said Leighton, and paused. "Devotion," he went on,
"is an act of worship, and of prayer as well as of consecration, only,
with a woman, it isn't an act at all. Sometime perhaps H lne will talk
to you. If she does, you'll see in her eyes what I'm trying to tell you
in words."

"And--Folly?" said Lewis. His own pause astounded him.

"Yes, Folly," said Leighton. "Well, that's what Folly lacks--the key,
the rock, the foundation. The only person Folly has a right to marry is
herself, and she knows it."

Lewis sighed with disappointment. He had been so sure. Leighton spoke
again.

"One thing more. Don't forget that to-day you and I--and H lne,
received Folly here as one of us."

Lewis looked up. Leighton rose, and laid one hand on his shoulder.

"Boy," he said, "don't make a mistress out of anything that has touched
H lne. You owe that to me."

"I won't, Dad," gulped Lewis. He snatched up his hat and stick and
hurried out into the open.

CHAPTER XXXIX

LEIGHTON'S heart ached for his boy as he watched him go, and during the
next few weeks Iris pity changed into an active anxiety. In setting that
trap--he could call it nothing else--for Lew, he and H lne had put
forces into conflict that were not amenable to any light control. Lewis
had passed his word. Leighton knew he would never go back on it. On the
other hand, for the first time in all her life Folly's primal instinct
was being balked by a denial she could comprehend only as having its
source in Leighton rather than in Lew.

Folly was being eaten away by desire. She was growing desperate. So were
Marie and the _masseuse._ When a morning came that found Folly with
purple shadows under her eyes their despair became terror.

"Madame," cried Marie, "why don't you marry him? You've got to stop it.
You've got to stop it. Anyway, all ways, you've got to stop it. It's
a-eating of you up. If you're a loving of him that muc