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But Beauty didn't want to talk about soap just then; she was interested in plate glass. "Tell me," she persisted, "do you really like him?"
"Why, yes, I think he's all right." Lanny was a bit reserved.
But then came a knockout. "How would you feel if I was to marry him?"
The boy would have had to be a highly trained diplomat to hide the dismay which smote him. The blood mounted to his cheeks, and he stared at his mother until she dropped her eyes. "Oh, Beauty!" he exclaimed. "What about Marcel?"
"Come sit here by me, dear," she said. "It's not easy to explain such things to one so young. Marcel has never expected to marry me. He has no money and he knows that I have none."
"But I don't understand. Would Robbie stop giving you money if you married?"
"No, dear, I don't mean that. But I can't always live on what Robbie gives me."
"But why not, Beauty? Aren't we getting along all right?"
"You don't know about my affairs. I have an awful lot of debts; they drive me to distraction."
"But why can't we go and live quietly at Bienvenu and not spend so much money?"
"I can't shut myself up like that, Lanny - I'm just not made for it. I'd have to give up all my friends, I couldn't travel anywhere, I couldn't entertain. And you wouldn't have any education - you wouldn't see the world as you've been doing - "
"Oh, please don't do it on my account!" the boy broke in. "I'd be perfectly happy to stay home and read books and play the piano."
"You think you would, dear; but that's because you don't know enough about life. People like us have to have money and opportunities - so many things you will find that you want."
"If I do, I can go to work and get them for myself, can't I?"
Beauty didn't answer; for of course that wasn't the real point; she was thinking about what she herself wanted right now. After a while Lanny ventured, in a low voice: "Marcel will be so unhappy!"
"Marcel has his art, dear. He's perfectly content to live in a hut and paint pictures all day."
"Maybe he is, so long as you are there. But doesn't he miss you right now?"
"Are you so fond of him, Lanny?"
"I thought that was what you wanted!" the boy burst out. "I thought that was the way to be fair to you!"
"It was, dear; and it was sweet. I appreciate it more than I've ever told you. But there are circumstances that I cannot control."
There was a pause, and the mother began to talk about Harry Murchison again. He had been in love with her for quite a while, and had been begging her to marry him; his love was a true and unselfish one. He was an unusually fine man, and could offer her things that others couldn't - not merely his money, but protection, and help in managing her affairs, in dealing with other people, who so often took advantage of her trustfulness and her lack of business knowledge.
"Harry has a lovely home in Pennsylvania, and we can go there to live, or we can travel - whatever we please. He's prepared to do everything he can for you; you can go to school if you like, or have a tutor - you can take Mr. Elphinstone to America with you, if you wish."
But Lanny didn't care anything about Mr. Elphinstone; he didn't care anything about America. He loved their home at Juan, the friends he had there and the things he did there. "Tell me, Beauty," he persisted, "don't you love Marcel any more?"
"In a way," she answered; "but" - then she stopped, embarrassed.
"Has he done something that isn't fair to you?"
The boy saw the beginning of tears in his mother's eyes. "Lanny, I don't think it's right for you to take up notions like that, and cross-question me and try to pin me down - "
"But I'm only trying to understand, Beauty!"
"You can't understand, because you aren't old enough, and these things are complicated and difficult. It's hard for a woman to know her own heart, to say nothing of trying to explain it to her son." "Well, I wish very much that you'd do what you can," said Lanny, gravely. Something told him that this was a crisis in their lives; and how he wished he could grow up suddenly! "Can you love two men at the same time, Beauty?"
"That is what I've been asking myself for a long while. Apparently I can." Beauty hadn't intended to make any such confession, but she was in a state of inner turmoil, and it was her nature to blurt things out. "My love for Marcel has always been that of a mother; I've thought of him as a helpless child that needed me."
"Well, doesn't he still need you? And if he does, what is going to become of him?"
Tears were making their way onto Beauty's tender cheeks. She didn't answer, and Lanny wondered if it was because she had no answer. He was afraid of hurting his mother; but also he was afraid of seeing her hurt Marcel. He had watched them both on the yacht, and impressions of their love had been indelibly graven upon his mind. Marcel adored her; and what would he do without her?
"Tell me this, Beauty, have you told Harry you will marry him?"
"No, I haven't exactly said that; but he wants me so much - "
"Well, I don't think you ought to make up your mind to such a step in a hurry. If it's debts, you ought to talk to Robbie about them."
"Oh, no, Lanny! I promised him I wouldn't have any debts."
"Well, don't you think you ought to wait and talk to Marcel at least?" Lanny was growing up rapidly in the face of this crisis.
"Oh, I couldn't do that!"
"But what do you expect to do? Just walk off and leave him? Would that be fair, Beauty? It seems to me it would be dreadfully unkind!"
His mother was staring at him, greatly disconcerted. "Lanny, you oughtn't to talk to me like that. I'm your mother!"
"You're the best mother in the world," declared the boy, with ardor. "But I don't want to see you do something that'll make us all unhappy. Please, Beauty, don't promise Harry till we've had time to think about it. Some day you may see me making some mistake, and then you'll be begging me to wait."
Beauty began sobbing. "Oh, Lanny, I'm in such an awful mess! Harry will be so upset - I've kept him waiting too long!"
"Let him wait, all the same," he insisted. He found himself suddenly taking the position of head of the family. "We just can't decide such a thing all at once." Then, after a pause: "Tell me - does Harry know about Marcel?" "Yes, he knows, of course." "But does he know how - how serious it is?" "He doesn't care, Lanny! He's in love with me." "Well, he oughtn't to be - at least, I mean, he oughtn't try to take you away from us!"
VI
Lanny Budd, in the middle of his fifteenth year, had to sit down and figure out this complicated man and woman business. He had been collecting data from various persons, over a large section of Europe. They hadn't left him to find out about it in his own way, they had forced it upon him: Baron Livens-Mazursky, Dr. Bauer-Siemans, the Social-Democratic editor, Beauty, Marcel and Harry, Edna and Ezra Hackabury, Miss Noggyns and Rosemary, Sophie and her lover - Lanny had seen them embracing one evening on the deck of the Bluebird - Mrs. Emily, who had a leading French art critic as her ami, old M. France and his Madame de Caillavet and his Argentine actress - to say nothing of his jokes about the leading ladies and gentlemen of history, rather horrid persons, some of them. King Louis XV had said to one of his courtiers that one woman was the same as another, only first she must be bathed and then have her teeth attended to.
In this world into which Lanny Budd had been born, love was a game which people played for their amusement; a pastime on about the same level as bridge or baccarat, horse racing or polo. It was, incidentally, a duel between men and women, in which each tried to achieve prestige in the eyes of the other; that was what the salons were for, the dinner parties, the fashionable clothes, the fine houses, the works of art. Lanny couldn't have formulated that, but he observed the facts, and in a time of stress understanding came to him.
Concealment was an important aspect of nearly all love, as Lanny had observed it; and this seemed to indicate that many people disapproved of the practice - the church people, for example. He had never been to church, except for a fashionable wedding, or to look at stained-glass windows and architecture. But he knew that many society people professed to be religious, and now and then they repented of their love affairs and became actively pious. This was one of the most familiar aspects of life in France, and in French fiction. Sophie's mother-in-law, an elderly lady of the old nobility with a worthless and dissipated son, lived alone, wore black, kept herself surrounded by priests and nuns, and prayed day and night for the soul of the prodigal.
Of course, there were married persons who managed to stay together and raise families. Robbie was apparently that sort; he never went after women, so far as Lanny had heard; but he seldom referred to his family in Connecticut, so it hardly existed for the boy. Apparently the Pomeroy-Nielsons also got along with each other; but Lanny had heard so much of extramarital adventures, he somehow took it for granted that if you came to know a person well enough, you'd find some hidden affaire.
The fashionable people had a code under which they did what they pleased, and he had never heard any of them question this right. But evidently the outside world did question it, and that seemed to put the fashionable ones in a trying position. They had always to guard against a thing called "a scandal." Lanny had commented upon this to Rick, who explained that "a scandal" was having your affaire get into newspapers. Because of the libel laws, this could happen only if it was dragged into court. In English country houses, everybody would know that Lord Black and Lady White were lovers, and all hostesses would put them in adjoining rooms; but never a word would be said about it, except among the "right" people, and it was an unforgivable offense to betray another person's love affair or do anything that would bring publicity upon it.
Lanny had been officially taught the "facts of life," and so was beginning to know his way about in society. He had come to know who was whose, so to speak, and at the same time he knew that he wasn't supposed to know - unless the persons themselves allowed him to. There were things he mustn't say to them, and others he must never say to anyone. The persons he met might be doing something very evil, but if there hadn't been "a scandal," they would be received in society, and it wasn't his privilege to set up a code and try to enforce it.
It had never before occurred to Lanny to find any serious fault with his darling Beauty. But now his quick mind could not fail to put two and two together. For years he had been hearing her tell her friends that she refused to "pay the price"; and now, how could he keep from believing that she was changing her mind? It was painful to have to face the idea that his adored mother might be selling herself to a handsome young millionaire in order to be able to have her gowns made by Paquin or Poiret, and to wear long ropes of genuine pearls as her friend Emily Chattersworth did! He told himself that there must be some reason why she was no longer happy with Marcel. The only thing he could think of was the painter's efforts to keep her from gambling, and from running into debt and losing her sleep. But Lanny had decided that Marcel was right about that.
VII
"I must go and see Isadora," said Mrs. Emily. "Maybe Lanny would like to go along."
Lanny cried: "Oh, thank you! I'd love it - more than anything." For years he had been hearing about Isadora, and once he had seen her at a lawn party at Cannes, but he had never had an opportunity to meet her or even to see her dance. People raved about her in such terms that to the boy she was a fabulous being.
Harry Murchison telephoned, and when Beauty told him about the proposed trip, he begged to be allowed to drive them. Mrs. Emily gave her consent; it appeared that she was promoting the affair between Harry and Beauty, giving the latter what she considered sensible advice.
They set out, Lanny riding in the front seat beside the young scion of plate glass, who laid himself out to be agreeable. But Lanny was hard to please; he was polite, but reserved; he knew quite well that he wasn't being wooed for his own beautiful eyes. Harry Murchison was well dressed and dignified, and had been to college and all that, but his best friend couldn't have claimed that he was a brilliant talker. When it came to questions of art and the imagination, he would listen for a while, trying to find something to say that was safe.
For example, Harry had seen Isadora Duncan dance; and what could he say about it? He said that she danced on an empty stage, and with bare feet, and that people in Pittsburgh had considered that decidedly risquй. He said that she had an orchestra, and danced "classical" music - as if anybody had imagined her dancing a cake-walk! If you made him search his memory he might add that she had blue velvet curtains at the back of the stage, and wore draperies of different colors according to the music, and that people clapped and shouted and made her come on again and again.
But imagine Marcel Detaze talking about Isadora! In the first place, he would know what was unique in her art, and how it was related to other dancing. He would know the difference between free gestures and any sort of conventionalized form. He would know the names of the compositions she danced, and what they expressed - poignant grief, joy of nature, revolt against fate, springtime awakening - and as Marcel told you about them he would grieve, rejoice, revolt, or awaken. He would use many gestures, he would make you realize the feat that was being performed - one small woman's figure, alone and without the aid of scenery, embodying the deepest experiences of the human soul; struck down with grief, lifted up in ecstasy, sweeping across the stage in such a tumult that you felt you were watching a great procиssion.
In short, Lanny was all for French temperament, as against American common sense. Of course, plate glass was useful, perhaps even necessary to civilization; but what did Harry Murchison have to do with it, except that he happened to be the grandson of a man who had known about it? Harry got big dividend checks, and would get bigger ones when his father and mother died; but that was all. He had sense enough to find Pittsburgh smoky and boring, and had come to Paris in search of culture and beauty. And that was all right - only let him find some other beauty than that upon which Lanny and Marcel had staked their claims!
Mrs. Emily in the back seat was telling about the affaires of Isadora, and Lanny turned his head to listen. The dancer was another person who had been experimenting with the sex life. She was a "free lover" - a new term to Lanny. He gathered its meaning to be that she refused to conceal what she did. Defying the dreadful thing called "scandal," she had had two children, one by a son of Ellen Terry, the actress, and the other by an American millionaire whom she called "Lohengrin." The smart world could not overlook such an opportunity for entertaining itself, and delighted in a story that Isadora had once offered to have a child by Bernard Shaw, saying that such a child would have her beauty and his brains; to which the skeptical playwright had replied: "Suppose it should have my beauty and your brains?"
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