from bliss, and--becomes an ideal.

Fate was kind to Lewis in handing him over to Cellette at the tragic
age. Nature had shown him much; Cellette showed him the rest. She took
him as a passenger through all the side-shows of life. She was tired of
payments in flesh and blood. She found her recompense in teaching him
how to talk, walk, eat, take pleasure in a penny ride on a river boat or
on top of a bus, and in spending his entire allowance to their best
joint profit.

In return Lewis received many a boon. He was no longer alone. He was
introduced as an equal to the haunts of the gay world of embryonic
art--the only world that has ever solved the problem of being gay
without money. From the first he was assumed to belong to Cellette. How
much of the assault, the jeers, the buffoonery, the downright evil of
initiation, he was saved by this assumption he never knew. Cellette
knew, but her tongue was held by shame. All her training had taught her
to be ashamed of "being good." If ever the secret of their astounding
innocence had got out, professional pride would have forced her to ruin
Lewis, body and soul, without a moment's hesitation.

Lewis also learned French--a French that rippled along mostly over
shallows, but that had deep pools of art technic, and occasionally flew
up and slapped you in the face with a fleck of well-aimed argot.

Weeks, months, passed before Leighton appeared on the scene, summoned by
a scribbled note from Le Brux. When greetings were over, Leighton asked:

"Well, what is it this time? How is the boy getting along? Is he going
to be a sculptor?"