Through stained glass Part 36

"It's only a plan to gain time, after all," said Helene; "but that's what you want--time for Lew to get his puppy eyes opened. You can elaborate the idea. I'll just give you the skeleton."

She did, and, soon after, Leighton saw her into a cab. He went back to the flat and waited. He knew that Lewis would not be gone long. He would be too keen to hear his father's and Lady Derl's verdict.

Leighton had just settled down to a book and a second cigar when Lewis came into the room like a breeze that had only a moment to stay.

"Well, Dad," he cried, "what have you got to say now? What has Lady Derl got to say?"

Lewis flung himself into a chair, crossed his arms, and stretched his legs straight out before him. His head hung to one side, and he was so confident of his father's verdict that he was laughing at him out of bright eyes.

Leighton laid his book aside and took his cigar from his mouth. He leaned toward his son, his elbows on his knees.

"Every time I see Miss Delaires," he said slowly, "my opinion of her charms and her accomplishments goes up with a leap."

Lewis nodded, and scarcely refrained from saying, "I told you so."

Leighton's face remained impa.s.sive. "She has a much larger repertoire than I thought," he continued; "but there's one role she can't play."

"What's that?" asked Lewis.

"Marriage."

"Why?" asked Lewis, his face setting. Then he blurted out: "I might as Well tell you, she says she doesn't believe in marriage. She's too advanced."

"Too advanced!" exclaimed Leighton. "Why, my dear boy, she hasn't advanced an inch from the time the strongest man with the biggest club had a G.o.d-given right to the fairest woman in the tribe and exercised it. That was the time for Folly to marry."

"Go easy, Dad," warned Lewis.

"I'm going to, Boy," said Leighton. "You hear a lot of talk to-day on the shortcomings of marriage as an inst.i.tution. The socialists and the suffragists and a lot of other near-sighted people have got it into their heads that we've outgrown marriage." Leighton puffed at his cigar.

"Once I was invited out to dinner, and had to eat cabbage because there was nothing else. That night I had the most terrible dream of my life. I dreamed that instead of growing up, I was growing down, and that by morning I had grown down so far that, when I tried to put them on, I only reached to the crotch of my trousers. I'll never forget those flapping, empty legs."

Lewis smiled.

"You can smile," went on Leighton. "I can't, even now. That's what's happened to this age. We've outgrown marriage downward. Your near-sighted people talk of contractual agreements, parity of the s.e.xes, 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed up his hat and stick and hurried out into the open.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

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 pa.s.sed 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 _ma.s.seuse._ 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 much, why don't cher?"

"Loving of him!" sneered Folly. "I--I hate him. No, no, that's not true.

I don't hate Lew, poor dear. It's _them_ I hate. And I _won't_ be beaten." She pounded her doubled knee with her fist. "I don't _want_ to marry him; but if they push me, if they keep on pushing me----"

It can be seen from the above that Lew was beginning to get on Folly's nerves. She had long since begun to get on his. When they were with others it was all right; Folly was her old self. But whenever they were alone, the same wordy battle began and never ended. Lew grew morose, heavy. He avoided his father, but he could do no work; so time hung on his hands, and began to rot away his fiber as only too much time can.

One day H lne sent for Leighton.

"Glen," she said, "we've been playing with something bigger than merely Folly. I saw her to-day, just a flash in Bond Street. I saw her face. If Lew holds out another week, she's going to marry him, and yet, somehow, I don't believe she loves him. Something tells me you weren't wrong when you said she could love nothing but just herself."

Leighton sighed.

"I know I wasn't wrong," he said. "But you are right: she's going to marry him. And I'll have to stand by and see him through. Watch her break him up and throw him off. And I'll have to pick up the pieces and stick them together. One doesn't like to have to do that sort of thing twice. I did it with my own life. I don't want to do it with Lew's.

There are such a lot of patched lives. I wanted him--I wanted him--"

H lne crossed the room quickly, and put her arms around Leighton, one hand pressing his head to her.

"Glen," she said softly, "why, Glen!"

Leighton was not sobbing. He was simply quivering from head to toe--quivering so that he could not speak. His teeth chattered. H lne smoothed his brow and his crisp hair, shot with gray. She soothed him.

"H lne," he said at last, "he's my boy."

"Glen," said H lne, "if you love him--love him like that, she can't break him up. Don't be frightened. Go and find him. Send him to me."

Leighton did not have to look for Lew. He had scarcely reached the flat when Lew came rushing in, a transformed Lew, radiant, throbbing with happiness.

"Dad," he cried, "she's said 'Yes.' She's going to marry me. Do you hear, Dad?"

"Yes, I hear," said Leighton, dully. Then he tossed back his head. He would not blur Lew's happy hour. He held out his hand. "I hear," he repeated, "and I'll--I'll see you through."

Lewis gripped the extended hand with all his strength, then he sat down and chatted eagerly for half an hour. He did not see that his father was tired.

"Go and tell H lne," he said when Lewis at last paused. "Telephone her that you want to talk to her."