then sat back and
let him talk. Woman's judgment may err in clinging to the last word, but
never is her finesse at fault in ceding the first.

H lne heard Lewis's tale from start to finish with only one
interruption. It took her five minutes to find out just what it was
Folly had said in her own tongue to the little cockney in his, and even
at that there were one or two words she had to guess. When she thought
she had them all, she sat up straight and laughed.

Lewis stared at her.

"Do you think it's funny?" he demanded.

"Oh, no, of course not," gasped Lady Derl, trying to gulp down her
mirth. "Not at all." And then she laughed again.

Lewis waited solemnly for her to finish, then he told her of some of the
things he had heard at the club.

"H lne," he finished, "I want you to know that I don't only see what a
fool I was. I see more than that. I see what you and dad sacrificed to
my blindness. I want you to know that you didn't do it in vain. Six
months ago, if I had found Folly out, I would have gone to the dogs,
taken her on her own terms, and said good-by to honor and my word to
dad. It's--it's from that that you have saved me."

H lne waved her hand deprecatingly.

"I did little enough for you, Lew. Not half what I would willingly have
done. But--but your dad--I wrote you I'd seen him just for an hour at
Port Said. Your dad, Lew, he's given you all he had."

"What do you mean?" asked Lewis, troubled.

"Nothing," said H lne, her thoughts wandering; "nothing that telling
will show you." She turned back to him and smiled. "Let's talk about
your pal Natalie. We're great friends."

"Friends?" said Lewis. "Have you been writing to her?"

"Oh, no," said H lne. "Women don't have to know each other to be
friends."

"Why, there's nothing more to tell about Natalie," said Lewis.

H lne looked him squarely in the eyes.

"Tell me honestly," she said; "haven't you wanted to go back to
Natalie?"

Lewis flushed. He rose and picked up his hat and stick.

"'You can give a new hat to a king, but it isn't everybody that will
take your cast-off clothes,' That's one of dad's, of course."

CHAPTER LII

Through that winter Lewis worked steadily forward to a goal that he knew
his father could not cavil at. He knew it instinctively. His grasp
steadied to expression with repression, or, as one of his envious, but
honest, competitors put it, genius had bowed to sanity.

It is usual to credit these rebirths i