d. "Sit down."

He sat down and showed her a photograph of his work. She looked at it
long. For an instant her worldliness dropped from her. She glanced
shrewdly at Lewis's face. He met her eyes frankly. Then she tossed the
picture aside.

"You are a nice boy," she said lightly. "I think I'll give a little
dinner for you. This time your dad won't object."

"I hope not," said Lewis, smiling. "I'm bigger than he is now."

Both laughed, and then chatted until Leighton came in to join them at
tea. Lady Derl told him of the dinner. He shrugged his shoulders and
asked when it was to be.

"Don't look so bored," said Lady Derl. "I'll get Old Ivory to come, if
you 're coming. You two always create an atmosphere within an atmosphere
where you can breathe the kind of air you like."

Leighton smiled.

"It's a funny thing," he said. "When Ivory and I meet casually, we
simply nod as though we'd never shared each other's tents; but when we
are both caught out in society, we fly together and hobnob like
long-lost brothers. We've made three trips together. Every one of 'em
was planned at some ultra dinner incrusted with hothouse flowers and
hothouse women."

"Thanks," said Lady Derl.

Lewis might have been bored by that first formal dinner if he had known
the difference between women grown under glass and women grown in the
open. But he didn't. With the exception of Ann Leighton, mammy, and
Natalie, who were not women at all so much as part and parcel of his own
fiber, women were just women. He treated them all alike, and with a
gallant nonchalance that astounded his two neighbors, Lady Blanche
Trevoy and the Hon. Violet Materlin, accustomed as they were to find
youths of his age stupidly callow or at best, in their innocence, mildly
exciting. Leighton, seated at H lne's left, watched Lewis curiously.

"They've taken to him," said H lne.

"Yes," said Leighton. "Nothing wins a woman of the world so quickly as
the unexpected. The unexpected adds to the ancient lure of curiosity the
touch of tartness that gives life to a jaded palate. Satiated women are
the most grateful for such a fillip, and once a woman's grateful, she's
generous. A generous man will give a beggar a copper, but a generous
woman will give away all her coppers, and throw in herself for good
measure."

"When you have to try to be clever, Glen, you're a bore," remarked
H lne.

"I'm not trying to be clever," said Leighton. "There's a battle going on
over th