"How's that?" said Leighton. "By making me want somebody else more." Leighton looked at her keenly for a moment. "I shall never do that," he said. "Somehow," said Folly, still smiling, "you've made a fair start. It isn't you exactly. It's that you are just Lew--the whole of Lew and a lot of things added." "You are blind," said Leighton; "you don't know the difference between addition and subtraction. Anyway, even if I could do it, I wouldn't. I want to fight fair--fair with Lew, fair with you, if you're fair with me, and fair with myself. But I want to fight, not play. Will you lunch at our place to-morrow?" "Let's see. To-morrow," said Folly, tapping her lips to hide a tiny yawn. "Well, we can't fight unless we get together, can we? Yes, I'll come." CHAPTER XXXVIII Immediately upon leaving Folly, Leighton called on Lady Derl, by appointment. He had already been to Hélène with his trouble over Lewis. It was she that had told him to see Folly. "In a case of even the simplest subtraction," Hélène had said, "you've got to know what you're trying to subtract from." As usual, Leighton was shown into Hélène's intimate room. He closed the door after him quickly. "Hélène," he said, "where's the key?" "The key? What key?" "The key to this door. I want to lock myself in here." "Poor frightened thing!" laughed Hélène. "Turn around and let me look at you. Is your face scratched?" Leighton pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. He stared at each familiar object in the room as though he were trying to recall a truant mind. Finally his eyes came around to Hélène, and with a quick smile and the old toss of the head with which he was wont to throw off a mood, he brought himself back to the present. "With time and patience," he said, as he sat down, "anybody can get a grip on a personality, but a mighty impersonality is like the Deluge or--or a steam-roller. Do I look flattened out?" "You do, rather, for you," said Hélène. "Tell me about it from the beginning." And Leighton did. It took him half an hour. When he got through, she said, still smiling, "I'd like to meet this Folly person." "I see I've talked for nothing," said Leighton. "It isn't the Folly person that flattened me out. It's what's around her, outside of her." "That's what you think," said Hélène. "But, still, it's she I'd like to see." "That's lucky," said Leighton, "because you 're going to." "When?" "To-morrow. Lunch." "What's the idea?" "The idea is this. I've been looking her up, viewing her cradle and her mother's cradle and that sort of thing. I'd have liked to have viewed her father's as well, but it's a case of _cherchez l'homme_." "Well?"