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attention they attracted. He kept himself clad according to their standards, did the. honors as
he had been taught, and for a while was happy as a young man a la mode. His wife was deeply
impressed by Emily Chattersworth, that serene and gracious hostess, and was taking her as a
model. Irma would remark: "If we had a larger house, we could entertain as Emily does." She
would try experiments, inviting this eminent person and that, and when they came she would
say to her husband: "I believe you and I could have a salon if we went about it seriously."
Lanny came to recognize that she was considering this as a career. Emily was growing feeble,
and couldn't go on forever; there would have to be someone to take her place, to bring the
fashionable French and the fashionable Americans together and let them meet intellectuals,
writers and musicians and statesmen who had made names for themselves in the proper
dignified way. As a rule such persons didn't have the money or time to entertain, nor were
their wives up to it; if you rendered that free service, it made you "somebody" in your own
right.
Lanny had said, rather disconcertingly, that she didn't know enough for the job; since which
time Irma had been on watch. She had met a number of celebrities, and studied each one,
thinking: "Could I handle you? What is it you want?" They seemed to like good food and
wine, like other people; they appreciated a fine
house and liked to come into it and sun themselves. Certainly they liked beautiful women—
these were the suns! Irma's dressing-room in the Cottage was rather small, but it contained a
pier-glass mirror, and she knew that what she saw there was all right. She knew that her
manner of reserve impressed people; it gave her a certain air of mystery, and caused them to
imagine things about her which weren't really there. The problem was to keep them from
finding out!
Each of the great men had his "line," something he did better than anybody else. Lanny
assumed that you had to read his book, listen to his speeches, or whatever it was; but Irma
made up her mind that this was her husband's naivete. He would have had to, but a woman
didn't. A woman observed that a man wanted to talk about himself, and a woman who was
good at listening to that was good enough for anything. She had to express admiration, but not
too extravagantly; that was a mistake the gushy woman made, and the man decided that she
was a fool. But the still, deep woman, the Mona Lisa woman, the one who said in a dignified way: "I
have wanted very much to know about that—please tell me more," she was the one who
warmed a celebrity's heart.
The problem, Irma decided, was not to get them to talk, but to get them to stop! The
function of a salonniere was to apportion the time, to watch the audience and perceive when
it wanted a change and bring about the change so tactfully that nobody noticed it. Irma
watched the technique of her hostess, and began asking questions; and this was by no means
displeasing to Emily, for she too was not above being flattered and liked the idea of taking on
an understudy. She showed Irma her address-book, full of secret marks which only her
confidential secretary understood. Some meant good things and some bad.
Lanny perceived that this developing interest in a salon was based upon a study of his own
peculiarities. He had always loved Emily and enjoyed her affairs, having been admitted to
them even as a boy, because he had such good manners. What Irma failed to note was that
Lanny was changing: the things which had satisfied him as a boy didn't necessarily do so when
he had passed his thirty-second birthday, and when the capitalist system had passed its
apogee. He would come home from one of Emily's soirees and open up a bunch of mail which
was like a Sophoclean chorus lamenting the doom of the House of Oedipus. The front page of a
newspaper was a record of calamities freshly befallen, while the editorial page was a betrayal
of fears of others to come.
For years the orthodox thinkers of France had congratulated that country upon its immunity
from depressions. Thanks to the French Revolution, the agriculture of the country was in the
hands of peasant proprietors; also the industry was diversified, not concentrated and
specialized like that of Germany, Britain, and America. France had already devalued her money,
one step at a time; she possessed a great store of gold, and so had escaped that hurricane
which had thrown Britain off the gold standard, followed by a dozen other countries in a row.
But now it appeared that the orthodox thinkers had been wishful. Hard times were hitting
France; unemployment was spreading, the rich sending their money abroad, the poor hiding
what they could get in their mattresses or under the oldest olive tree in the field. Suffering and
fear everywhere—so if you were a young idealist with a tender heart, how could you be happy?
Especially if your doctrines persuaded you that you had no right to the money you were
spending! If you persisted in keeping company with revolutionists and malcontents who were
only too ready to support your notions—and to draw the obvious conclusion that, since your
money didn't belong to you, it must belong to them! As a rule they asked you to give it for the
"cause," and many were sincere and would really spend it for the printing of literature or the
rental of meeting-places. That justified them in their own eyes and in yours, but hardly in the
eyes of the conservative-minded ladies and gentlemen whom your wife expected to invite to a
salon!
Some five years had passed since Lanny had begun helping workers' education in the Midi,
and that was time enough for a generation of students to have passed through his hands and give
him some idea of what he was accomplishing. Was he helping to train genuine leaders of the
working class? Or was he preparing some careerist who would sell out the movement for a
premiership? Sometimes Lanny was encouraged and sometimes depressed. That is the fate of
every teacher, but Lanny had no one of experience to tell him so.
Bright lads and girls revealed themselves in the various classes, and became the objects of his
affection and his hopes. He found that, being children of the Midi, they all wanted to learn to
be orators. Many acquired the tricks of eloquence before they had got any solid foundation,
and when you tried to restrain them and failed, you decided that you had spoiled a good
mechanic. Many Were swept off their feet by the Communists, who for some reason were the most
energetic, the most persistent among proletarian agitators; also they had a system of thought
wearing the aspect and using the language of science, and thus being impressive to young minds.
Lanny Budd, talking law and order, peaceable persuasion, gradual evolution, found himself
pigeon-holed as vieux jeu, or in American a "back number." "Naturally," said the young Reds,
"you feel that way because you have money. You can wait. But what have we got?"
This was true enough to trouble Lanny's mind continually. He watched his own influence
upon his proletarian friends and wondered, was he really doing them good? Or were the
preachers of class struggle right, and the social chasm too wide for any bridge-builder? What
community of feeling or taste could survive between the exquisite who lived in Bienvenu and
the roustabout's son who lived in the cellar of a tenement in the Old Town of Cannes? Was it
not possible that in coming to the school well dressed, and speaking the best French, Lanny was
setting up ideals and standards which were as apt to corrupt as to stimulate?
His friends at the school saw him driving his fancy car, they saw him with his proud young
wife; for though she came rarely, they knew her by sight and still more by reputation. And
what would that do to youths at the age of susceptibility? Would it teach them to be loyal to
some working-class girl, some humble, poorly dressed comrade in their movement? Or would it
fill them with dreams of rising to the heaven where the elegant rich ladies were kept? Lanny,
surveying his alluring spouse, knew that there was in all the world no stronger bait for the soul
and mind of a man. He had taken that bait more than once in his life; also he knew something
about the four Socialists who had become premiers of France, and knew that in every case it
had been the hand of some elegant siren which had drawn him out of the path of loyalty and into
that of betrayal.
VI
There stood unused on the Bienvenu estate a comfortable dwelling, the Lodge, which Lanny
had built for Nina and Rick. He begged them to come and occupy it this season; he had some
important ideas he wanted to discuss. But Rick said the pater had been hit too hard by the slump,
which seemed to have been aimed at landowners all over the world. Lanny replied with a
check to cover the cost of the tickets; it had been earned by the sale of one of Marcel's pictures,
and there were a hundred more in the storeroom. Also, Lanny explained, the vegetable garden at
Bienvenu had been enlarged, so as to give some of Leese's cousins a chance to earn their keep.
Come and help to eat the stuff!
Mother and father and the three children came; and after they had got settled, Lanny
revealed what he had in mind: to get some more money out of the picture business (perhaps
Irma would want to put some in) to found a weekly paper, with Rick as editor. They would try
to wake up the intellectuals and work for some kind of co-operative system in Europe before it
was too late. Lanny said he didn't know enough to edit a paper himself, but would be what in
America was called an "angel."
Rick said that was a large order, and did his friend realize what he was letting himself in for?
The commercial magazine field was pretty crowded, and a propaganda paper never paid
expenses, but cost like sin. Lanny said: "Well, I've spent my share on sin, and I might try
something else for a change."
"One can't publish a paper in a place like Cannes," declared Rick. "Where would you go?"
"I've wondered if it mightn't be possible to bring out a paper in London, and at the same time
in Paris in French?"
"You mean with the same contents?"
"Well, practically the same."
"I should say that might be done if the paper were general and abstract. If you expect to deal
with current events, you'd find the interests and tastes of the two peoples too far apart."
"The purpose would be to bring them together, Rick. If they read the same things, they
might learn to understand each other."
"Yes, but you're trying to force them to read what they don't want. The paper would seem
foreign to both sides; your enemies would call it that and make it appear still more so."
"I don't say it would be easy," replied the young idealist. "What makes it hard is exactly what
makes it important."
"I don't dispute the need," Rick said. "But it would cost a pile of money: A paper has to come
out regularly, and if you have a deficit, it goes on and on."
"Would you be interested in it as a job?" persisted the other.
"I'd have to think it over. I've come down here with a mind full of a play."
That was the real trouble, as it turned out. There was no use imagining that anybody could
edit a paper as a sideline; it was a full-time job for several men, and Rick would have to give up
his life's ambition, which was to become a dramatist. He had had just enough success to keep
him going. That, too, was an important task: to force modern social problems into the theater,
to break down the taboo which put the label of propaganda upon any effort to portray that class
struggle which was the basic fact of the modern world. Rick had tried it eight or ten times, and
said that if he had put an equal amount of energy and ability into portraying the sexual
entanglements of the idle rich, he could have joined that envied group and had plenty of
entanglements. But he was always thinking of some wonderful new idea which no audience
would be able to resist; he had one now, and so the Franco-British weekly would have to wait
until the potential editor had relieved his mind.
Lanny said: "If it's a good play, maybe Irma and I will back it." He always included his wife,
out of politeness, and the same motive would cause her to come along.
"That costs money, too," was Rick's reply. "But at least, if the play falls flat, you don't have to
produce it again the next week and the week after."
VII
Zaharoff was back at his hotel in Monte, and would send his car for Madame Zyszynski, and
write notes expressing his gratitude to the family. He said he wished there were something he
could do in return; and apparently he meant it, for when Robbie Budd came into possession of
a block of New England-Arabian stock, he came to see the old man, who bought the stock at
Robbie's own price. It wasn't a large amount, but Lanny said it was a sign that the duquesa
really was "coming through."
Beauty was devoured by curiosity about these seances, and questioned Madame every time she
came back; but the medium stuck to her story that she had no idea of what happened when
she was in her trance. Evidently Tecumseh was behaving well, for when she came out she
would find the sitter gracious and considerate. She always had tea with the maid of Sir Basil's
married daughter, and sometimes the great man himself asked questions about her life and ideas.
Evidently he was reading along the lines of spiritualism, but he never said a word about
himself, nor did he mention the duquesa's name.
Beauty thought it was poor taste for a borrower to keep the owner so entirely in the dark; and
perhaps the idea occurred to Sir Basil, for he called Lanny on the telephone and asked if he could
spare time to run over and see him. Lanny offered to drive Madame on the next trip, and
Zaharoff said all right; Lanny might attend the seance if it would interest him. That was certainly
an advance, and could only mean that Zaharoff had managed to make friends with the Iroquois
chieftain and his spirit band.
"All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." So Lanny's stern
