Doubtless there had been some conversation between mother and daughter, and it must have contained an element favorable to the young art expert, for in spite of the fact that they had a chauffeur with them, and that Mrs. Emily also had one, they permitted Lanny to drive them about. Miss Barnes sat in the seat beside him, and he pointed out the places of interest and told her about the life, not all of it favorable; it would be well for her to know that the coast abounded in swindlers and pretenders, many of them highly ingenious. He mentioned the Rumanian countess, genuine, who had sold him a vase that wasn’t.
They came to Monte Carlo, and had lunch at Ciro’s, and strolled about, looking at the sights. Lanny said it was time for Zaharoff to be taking his constitutional, and Irma asked: “Who is he?” He told her, and thought it was interesting, but discovered that for the young the aged are but dim shadows. His offer, half playful, to take them for a call upon the munitions king did not interest a glamour girl; what she wanted was to see the gambling which people talked about all over the world. Followed by the two elders as chaperons, he escorted her into the sumptuous rococo palace; they wandered through the white and gilt rooms, overdecorated and very ill-ventilated, and explained that they no longer belonged to Zaharoff; the old trader had sold the place for three times what he paid—trust him for that!
They watched the players at the various tables, and finally Irma wanted to try roulette. Did Lanny have any idea which number was likely to win? He said that he had not the slightest idea; his father had insisted that he must never harbor any such thought, never let anyone persuade him that it was possible to know or to guess, for that was the shortest road to ruin in the whole world. Irma said she had a hunch for the number eleven, having somewhere heard somebody say “Come eleven,” so she took out a ten-franc note and laid it on that number; if her hunch should prove correct, she would be paid thirty-five times the amount of her stake.
The croupier spun the wheel, and presently said his formula: “Rien ne va plus.” The little ball dropped into number twenty-eight, so the croupier raked in Irma’s ten francs. She moved on, saying: “Perhaps it’s just as well, or I might have got interested.”
“It doesn’t always work that way,” commented the escort. “Many people try to win their money back, and that’s where their troubles begin.”
The party had been recognized in the restaurant, and people had turned to stare at them; several had followed at a discreet distance. Now they were known in the casino, and next day stories appeared in the papers; the American heiress had visited “Monty” and risked and lost ten francs. This seemed to amuse the newspapermen; they figured that it was the one hundred-millionth part of Irma Barnes’s fortune, and telegraphed this calculation all over the world. One of the gossip writers in New York compared it with the practice of another very wealthy American, old “John D.,” who gave a shiny new dime to every person rich or poor whom he met. Mrs. Barnes received a cable from her brother in New York, saying that this wasn’t very good publicity; he didn’t make clear whether he meant gambling in general, or gambling for such a puny stake. He himself was a Wall Street operator.
The incident had its effect upon Lanny’s affairs. He was named as the escort of the glamour girl, and it gave him a taste of publicity not so disagreeable to his mother and her friends as the occasion of his escape from the Fascists. Many persons called up Bienvenu asking to meet the American heiress; persons whom Beauty had well-nigh forgotten presented themselves suddenly as old friends. They had houses to rent to Irma Barnes, family heirlooms to sell to her, sons to marry to her—or they just wanted to meet her on general principles, they were moths who flew to the spotlight, hoping to have their names in the papers as Lanny had succeeded in doing. Beauty informed these persons that Miss Barnes’s business manager was staying at such and such a hotel in Cannes; but of course that wasn’t what they wanted.
There was a very grand reception to the heiress at Sept Chenes, and the crème de la crème attended; more titles than you could shake a stick at, or could keep in your memory no matter how hard you might try—and Irma didn’t. To an American girl the difference between a marquess and a marques and a marquis and a marchese was not readily apparent, and a dark brown skin meant just one thing to her, even when the bearer was an East Indian potentate. Some of these gentlemen were bachelors, and others willing to become so if Irma Barnes would smile upon them; since she smiled upon all impartially, they gathered around her like bees at swarming time. Lanny, having no title and no fortune to speak of, realized what a silly enterprise the women of his circle had pushed him into, and sat out in the sunshine with M. Rochambeau and a French diplomat of the latter’s acquaintance, discussing the probable life-span of the Kellogg pact and which nation would be the first to breach it.
IX
Irma Barnes had inspected the Riviera, and had learned that Nice was “common,” while Cannes was “right.” She had visited and approved the château of an American copper-mining heiress up on the heights not far from Sept Chênes. There she and her entourage were installed: a business manager, or steward, his secretary and a bookkeeper, Irma’s social secretary, her maid and her mother’s maid and a chauffeur; that was the staff with which she traveled, and the manager would engage servants for the château locally. She herself would never have to move a finger, or use her mind longer than it took to learn the names of the butler and the housekeeper. Her function was to have beautiful clothes draped upon her, and go forth to give the world the pleasure of gazing at her. In due course she would be named as one of the best-dressed women of the Continent, an honor which one attained by purchasing the most clothes from the fashionable couturiers of Paris—or from their Riviera branch establishments—and permitting them to design everything and charge double or triple prices.
The story which the papers told was that the great American heiress had come to Europe in search of “culture,” but of course that didn’t go down with the beau monde. It was taken for granted that she was looking for a husband, and it would have to be a title, one of the greatest. Every mother of an eligible son was on the qui vive, and some came to the Riviera especially on Irma’s account; who would begrudge the price of a ticket in a lottery such as this? The smart people were agog, and the smart newspapermen amused themselves and their readers by listing the eligibles, as they would have done for a race at Longchamps: the name of the entry, what stable it was from, what prizes it had won, the names of the sire and the dam. This was a convenience for both Irma and her mother, for they could cut out the list and learn the titles: Prinz zu Pumpernickel of the royal house of a German state, the Duc de Choufleur of the old French noblesse, the dashing young Baron Snuffsky from Poland, the fabulously wealthy Maharaja of Gavardior.
The proper procedure was for Mrs. Barnes to have a lawyer to whom these candidates might send their lawyer, presenting their photographs and credentials, a list of their titles, castles and other possessions, and a statement of the dowry which the bride would be expected to bring. Mrs. Barnes’s lawyer would convey these various proposals to her, and if the family was interested, arrangements would be made for a meeting between the bride and the prospective bridegroom. That was the dignified way to handle it, but of course with crude Americans one must be prepared for almost anything. Did they expect the business manager who hired their house and paid their servants to handle their marriage arrangements? Or did Mrs. Barnes expect to discuss such matters herself? The social secretary was asked this question, Mrs. Chattersworth was asked it, and discreet inquiries came to Mrs. Barnes by mail: “Will you kindly designate in what manner, etc.”
Lanny had retired to his studio and was reading Marx’s Capital, in order to try to understand the theory of surplus value to which Rick and others were so frequently referring. Emily came to Bienvenu, and she and Beauty had a pow-wow, after which the châtelaine of Sept Chênes strolled over to the studio and walked in on the young social scientist. “See here,” she said, “do you want to or don’t you?”
“Don’t I what?”
“Don’t waste my time. Do you or don’t you?”
“Well, honestly, Mrs. Emily, I don’t think that I do and I do think that I don’t. It’s awfully good of you, and I’d do most anything in the world to oblige you; but I just feel silly. The girl hasn’t any interest in me, and I don’t want anything she has, and why should I sacrifice my self-respect and make her think that I do?”
“Are you quite sure she hasn’t any interest in you?”
“Well, my God, she had every chance to show it, but I might as well have been a hired guide.”
“Do you expect the woman to do the wooing?”
“You’re darn’ well right I do—when she has as much money as this one. A man feels like a cad if he so much as looks at her.”
“Are you sure you’re not the one who’s making too much out of her money, Lanny?”
“Well, I know a little about the world; and if that mother of hers isn’t thinking about her money, then I’m a hard-boiled cynic.”
“Let me tell you about them. Irma loves her mother, and respects her, but all the same there’s a struggle going on between them, and it’s hard on both. Fanny Barnes has had a very unhappy life; her husband kept women all over town, and she loathed him; it’s affected her attitude to pretty nearly all men. She doesn’t like to see them come around Irma; she can’t help knowing what they want, and not liking it.”
“Does she want the girl to grow up an old maid?”
“What she would like is for her to marry some mature businessman, who can handle her fortune; she has a man in mind in New York, but Irma won’t have him, so here they are.”
“Well, I’m no businessman, Mrs. Emily, and I wouldn’t have the least idea what to do with her fortune.”
“What Irma wants, Lanny, is to fall in love.”
“Has she told you that?”
“Not in so many words, but it’s written all over her.”
“Well, if she wants to fall in love with me, the first thing would be to know something about me. She can’t very well judge with her mother sitting by and making me feel that she’d like to call the police.”
“No doubt she would,” laughed the woman. “But she won’t.”
“Irma has got swarms of men around her and she’s on the go all the time. I don’t think she’s missing me.”
“Maybe she’s missing something that might be of advantage to her if she knew about it.”
“You were always too kind, Mrs. Emily. The way I feel is this: whether she likes it or not, she’s in the position of a queen, and if she wants a man she has to say so. He can’t ask her.”
“That’s really making it too hard for any girl.”
“Well, if she wants a man who doesn’t want her for her money, how else will she get him?”
The woman thought that over; then she inquired: “Is there anything you would suggest?”
“I’d suggest meeting her like any other young woman. I’d invite her for a drive, or a sail, or something, and she could see if she likes me, and I’d see if I like her.”
“All right,” was the reply. “It may mean a fight with Fanny, but I’ll see if it can be arranged.”
X
Rick said: “I’m not rotting, there’s an idea in that play. If you’ll get the stuff, I’ll write it.”
Lanny, amused, inquired: “Shall I tell her that you want to write it?”
“Tell her that you want to write it yourself.”
“That would make me another kind of fortune-hunter. And a cheap one, I fear.”
“Well, don’t fear too much. Go right after her.”
Lanny said: “I’ll see.” He was amused by the advice, so exactly the opposite of Rick’s own manner of approach to anything or anybody. An Englishman’s idea of an American man dealing with an American woman!
One bright and pleasant day right after lunch Lanny drove up to the château on the heights, and the new English butler received him and said: “I will notify Miss Barnes, sir.” Lanny sat in a large reception hall which had portraits, and he used such occasions for testing his professional skill. Without looking at the signature, he would ask himself: “Who painted that? What is the period? And what would I offer for it?” He would find out how near he had come on the first two points, and Zoltan would tell him about the last.
The daughter of Midas appeared, wearing what was called a sports ensemble, white with gold trim, very gay. “Take a warm wrap,” he said. “You can never tell when you go sailing.” They rolled gently down the slope, over the boulevards of the city of Cannes, and out to the Cap, where Lanny had his boat. On the way he asked what she had been doing, whom she had met and what she thought of them—the easiest kind of conversation. She was reserved in her comments on people, and he thought: “Is she being kind to them? Or is she not very perceptive?” A few matters he had become certain about; she would never “rave” over anything, and, on the other hand, she was not malicious, she didn’t say contemptuous things. Maybe she was just slow in her mental processes. It was hard for Lanny to imagine that, for his own mind was usually behaving like fireworks inside.
He assisted her into the boat. Just enough breeze for pleasant sailing; but one couldn’t count upon permanence in January. Emily Chattersworth had assured Mrs. Barnes that Lanny had sailed the Golfe Juan since he was a boy, and never had been upset. He would take her around the Lerin islands, and perhaps stop on Sainte-Marguerite and have tea under the soughing pine trees.
He said: “Over there close to shore is where the submarine came up. It was always my favorite spot for torch-fishing.” He told her about Captain Bragescu, the Rumanian officer who had painted and powdered his face, but, even so, had speared and landed the biggest green moray that Lanny had ever seen. He told about goggle-fishing, and how for months he had watched and stalked a big merou. He mentioned that his father had used this boat as a place of retreat in which to impart the weightiest secrets about munitions deals. “I’m not sure they were really so weighty,” he said, “but he wanted to impress me with the importance of not letting people fish things out of me. You can see that a sailboat is a fine place for private conferences.”
“I wish my father had thought of it,” said Irma Barnes. Evidently she had some incident in mind, but didn’t tell it.
Lanny said: “Do you find it interesting to watch people and try to understand them—what they’re thinking about and what makes them tick? They don’t always want you to know.”
“I’ve been told that is sometimes the case,” admitted the heiress with a smile.
“My life has been a queer one,” the young man went on to explain. “I’ve never been great or important, and never wanted to be; but accident has thrown me among people of that sort—at least, they considered themselves that, and were able to get the world to accept them. My father being in munitions, I can’t recall the time when I wasn’t meeting generals and cabinet members and bigwigs like that. Then for six months I was on the American staff at the Peace Conference, and I didn’t really have any influence, but a lot of people thought I might have it. So, one way or another, I’d meet this or that headliner, and I’d think: ‘What is he really like? What’s he thinking about right now? What does he want to get from me, or from my father, or from my chief?’ It gets to be a habit—maybe a bad one.”
“It sounds rather alarming,” commented the girl in the sailboat. There were a few others on the golfe, but some distance away.
“Oh, I never did any of them any harm,” said Lanny. “I just thought about them, and often I never had any chance to check up and find out if I was right.”
“Are you trying to check up on me?” she smiled. It was certainly a “lead,” but Lanny judged it best not to follow it too eagerly.
“I told you about Zaharoff,” he said. “I saw a great deal of him during the Peace Conference in Paris. He wanted something from me—I’m not at liberty to say what it was, but it was a matter of state, and the old gentleman gav
e quite a fascinating demonstration of how a Levantine trader sets about getting what he’s after. You understand, he was at that time the richest man in Europe; my father said he was the richest man in the world. He has two daughters who are going to be his heirs. He invited me to meet those young ladies—he was using them as bait. I was supposed to keep on coming, so that he could win me over. They were lovely girls, and their mother was a Spanish duquesa, a relative of King Alfonso. They probably had no idea what they were being used for; they met a young American connected with the Peace Commission, who told them amusing stories about what was going on; they were modest and reserved, quite romantic-looking—I was only nineteen at the time, so I was susceptible. I had read fairy stories when I was a child, and I thought: ‘Here are two princesses, and I wonder what princesses really think about, and are they as interesting as the stories make them seem.’”
“What happened?” asked Irma.
“Its too bad. It’s like a serial story when you miss the next issue of the magazine. My position was such that I couldn’t honorably go back again.”
“You were just getting to the interesting place,” remarked the glamour girl.
XI
The breeze was from the west, and the little boat was close-hauled; Lanny, holding the tiller, had to keep watch ahead, so the girl, seated farther forward, was in his line of vision. She, for her part, might have been interested in the view, in which case she would have turned her back to Lanny; but she didn’t. Looking into the mainsail of a boat gets rather monotonous, so now and then she would direct her glance toward the young man at her side. It was a time for confidences, if ever. “Go after her hard!” Rick had said.