The ladies at Bienvenu and its vicinity did the same thing for Lanny. With them it was the way it had been during both battles of the Marne; everybody wanted bulletins every hour! They were, as the phrase had it, “dying with curiosity.” Nina and Margy would come over to the villa to hear what Beauty had to report, and Emily and Sophie would telephone and ask questions—not going into detail, because telephone wires have leaks. Each of the ladies would give Lanny advice; Sophie, the henna blond with the henna laugh, quite differently from the gentle, reticent Nina. But even Nina prodded him. “You know, Lanny, girls don’t propose to men, except in Bernard Shaw’s dramas.” Rick added: “Not even in The Glamour Girl by Pomeroy-Nielson!”
The drama of Lanny and the heiress was being produced and directed by the wise and tactful Emily Chattersworth. She would carry messages back and forth; she would investigate the wavering young hearts and report upon their condition. Irma found it amusing that a white-haired grande dame—everybody considered her that—should be carrying on a proud young man’s romance for him; she didn’t mind being questioned, though she knew that every word she said was going back to Lanny. She liked him very much, but she liked other men too; she liked the excitement of keeping them on a string and watching them dance, such very elegant and graceful dancers. In return for this confession she received the latest cardiographic reports from Bienvenu. Lanny liked her, but didn’t know if she liked him enough, or if he could make her happy, or whether a poor man had a right to try. He was afraid he bored her, and also afraid she wanted to “gad” too much. The tactful ambassadress took the liberty of putting this last in more diplomatic language.
III
This went on all through the Riviera season; they had a pleasant time, and nobody was hurt, unless possibly it was Beauty, who declared that she was living “on pins and needles,” a distressing state of affairs even for one so well padded as she was getting to be. She had got it fixed up with God so that He didn’t object to Lanny’s marrying Irma, and didn’t even object to petitions ascending to His Throne soliciting aid in the matter. Beauty had even been able to make some impression upon her spiritual-minded husband, by persistently calling his attention to the many worthy works which he and she might be able to do—not with Irma’s money, but with Beauty’s and Lanny’s, which might be released for the service of Divine Truth if Lanny were to marry a fortune. The devil is a subtle worm, and it is known that he assumes many disguises to gain access to the hearts of his victims.
Lanny, being a human ego, operating in connection with flesh and blood, was likewise exposed to these satanic wiles. It occurred to his mind that a Socialist Sunday school which was helping the workers of Cannes might be extended to bring similar benefits to the workers of Nice and Toulon and Marseille. There might arise somewhere on the Riviera a so-called People’s House, an institution such as Lanny had inspected in Brussels to his great satisfaction. Also, if an Englishman of brilliant parts were to write a wise and useful book, it might be possible to have it printed in a cheap edition and made available to the sort of persons who needed it. Such thoughts, haunting the mind of Lanny Budd, were proof that the mental powers of Satan have remained unweakened during the course of nineteen hundred years.
“Lanny, for God’s sake, why don’t you ask her?” clamored Beauty.
“I really think that the time has come,” declared Mrs. Emily. It was a special council of war, called at Sept Chenes.
“I simply can’t do it,” declared the scrupulous suitor. “She has too much money.”
“You just don’t care for her enough!”
“I care for her enough so that I would ask her if she didn’t have so much money.”
“Then can’t you say: ‘Irma, if you didn’t have so much money, I would ask you to marry me’?”
“No, because she has the money. I simply won’t put myself in the class with those fortune-hunters.”
So there they were. Beauty said: “Lanny, you are provoking!”
Emily said: “Just what do you want to happen? Does she have to say: ‘Lanny, will you marry me?’”.
“I don’t care what words she uses. She can say: ‘Lanny, I know you’re not a fortune-hunter.’ That’s what I want her to know, and I want to know that she knows it. She ought to understand my feelings. If she expects to be happy with me, she must never have the thought that I was after her fortune. It’s a question of her self-respect as well as of mine.”
Beauty broke in: “Suppose she should ask you to kiss her?”
Lanny grinned. “Oh, I’d kiss her,” he said. “But that wouldn’t be asking her to marry me.”
“I think you’re acting horrid,” said that exemplar of the proprieties.
IV
Such was the point at which matters stood when the telephone rang in Emily’s Renaissance villa, and it was Mrs. Fanny Barnes saying: “Emily, I want to talk with you about something urgent.”
“All right,” said the châtelaine. “Come on over.”
So the mother of Irma had her two hundred and forty-five pounds of dignity transported down from one Riviera height and up to another, and came stalking into Emily’s boudoir, holding in her hand a small rectangular piece of paper having on it the imprint of a transatlantic cable company. “Please read that,” she said, holding it out. “From my brother.”
Emily took it and read: “Definite reliable information party illegitimate no marriage occurred advise immediate breaking connection greatly concerned please acknowledge receipt. Horace.”
“Well?” demanded the mother of Irma, frowning under her dark, heavy brows.
“Of course,” replied the older woman, quietly. “You didn’t have to cable inquiries. I could have told you if I had thought it would interest you.”
“Interest me? Good God! You mean you knew all along that this fellow was a bastard?”
“We’re in the twentieth century, Fanny, not the eighteenth. Lanny’s father has acknowledged him as his son. The boy lived in his father’s home in Connecticut during all the time that America was in the war.”
“Emily, you introduced this man and let him make love to my daughter!”
“My dear, you’re just working up an excitement. You know of many cases—I’ll name names, if you want me to.”
“Not among the Vandringhams.”
“Maybe not—I admit that I lack the data. But let’s not be childish. Robbie Budd and Beauty were for all practical purposes man and wife. He told me the story and asked me to befriend her, and I did. The only reason they never had a ceremony was that Beauty had had her portrait painted in the near nude—a very lovely painting which Lanny now has in his storeroom, and which he’ll show you some day. The old grandfather is some sort of hardshell fundamentalist, a religious crank, and he threatened to disinherit Robbie if he married, and Beauty wouldn’t marry him, which was something very much to her credit. I’ve known Lanny since he was a tiny little fellow, and right now I’ve been having rather amusing negotiations, because he has old-fashioned notions of honor that won’t permit him to ask for a rich girl’s hand.”
“You don’t think his old-fashioned notions of honor ought to have caused him to tell the girl that he’s a bastard?”
“I’m quite sure he gave no thought to it, Fanny. He’s managed to get along quite cheerfully in spite of that handicap.”
“He knows about it?”
“Beauty told him when he was a small boy. He can’t see that it’s done him any harm, and neither can I; nor can I see how it would do Irma any.”
“I must say that I am surprised by the extent to which you have adopted European attitudes toward moral questions.”
“Well, my dear, there’s an old saying over here: ‘When you are among wolves you must howl with them.’ When you talk about moral codes you raise a large issue, and I think it better to deal with the practical question. Robbie Budd told me that Lanny is to share in his estate.”
“Thank you, Emily, but I don’t think Irma will be much conce
rned about that aspect of the matter.”
“Are you quite sure she will be concerned about the bad name you give her young friend?”
“I don’t know, but I certainly hope so. I may be eighteenth-century, as you say, but I still have the idea that a mother ought to have something to say about her daughter’s love affairs, and that she ought to be a party to whatever negotiations are being carried on.” And without another word the outraged Mrs. J. Paramount Barnes lifted her two hundred and forty-five pounds of majesty out of her chair and bore them swiftly out of the room and down the stairs to her limousine.
V
Fate arranged it that this was the moment when Ettore, Duca d’Elida, showed up on the polo fields of the Riviera. He was twenty-four years of age, a cousin of the Italian royal family; handsome as a movie idol, tall, dark, romantic-looking, with regular white teeth and shiny smooth black hair. He was hard as nails and rode like the devil, and when the polo game was over he put on a brilliant uniform, being a captain in the Italian air force. He knew all about Irma Barnes, and when he was introduced to her he displayed none of the inhibitions of Lanny Budd. He didn’t mind asking for the hand of a rich girl, and the presence of spectators did not deter him from being stunned by her beauty, ravished by her charm, completely carried away by her tout ensemble of dignity, grace, and general irresistibility. He told her all that in very nearly perfect English, and a thrill went through the spectators of the scene.
There ensued a whirlwind courtship. He followed her everywhere, and never left her side if he could help it. He said that she was a treasure—and then, minding his metaphors, he said that she was a vision out of heaven, and that he desired only to dwell in the light of her presence and never depart therefrom. He seemed to know all the beautiful phrases that had ever been written or sung in praise of woman; to Irma it was all the things she had seen portrayed on the stage, sometimes lifted to glory by operatic music. This was love, this was passion, this was romance.
Lanny Budd’s nose was put completely out of joint. He was no longer invited to the château on the height, and he did not attempt to go. He gave up without a struggle; if that was what she wanted, all right, the quicker she found it out the better. The ladies of his entourage all but went into mourning; his mother scolded—but he wouldn’t budge. No, indeed, she had a free choice, and if she wanted to be an Italian duchessa, that was one way to invest her money. The smart set might get what pleasure they could out of his humiliation; he would go back to his Sunday school and his music, and manage to have a very good time, as before.
“But, Lanny,” cried his mother, “she doesn’t know what it will mean to marry an Italian! Somebody ought to tell her what their attitude toward women is, and their marriage laws.”
“Somebody else will be the one to tell her,” said the haughty young intellectual.
“Oh, I was so happy in the thought that you were going to get settled down!”
“Well, don’t give up, old dear. There are as good fish in the sea as in any man’s net—even a duca’s.”
The season was drawing to its close on the Riviera; the season at Rome was just beginning, and abruptly it was announced that the Barnes family was leaving for the Eternal City. That settled it, of course; she was going straight into his arms! The business manager hired an airplane and flew to Rome, rented a suitable palace and engaged servants, and a couple of days later everything was in readiness for the queen mother and the princess. They would be taken up in aristocratic circles, received by the king and queen, surrounded by pomp and glory; Lanny Budd, notorious young anti-Fascist agitator, wouldn’t even be permitted to attend her nuptials!
What he did was to stroll over to the lodge and say to Rick: “Well, old sport, you can write that play!”
VI
Robbie Budd came to London. He was having more trouble with his oil wells in Arabia; also he was in a state of exasperation because the Geneva politicians—Robbie’s name for the League of Nations—were threatening to interfere with the international shipment of arms. They had been talking about it for years, and now they seemed to be at the point of taking action. If you studied the list of portions of the earth’s surface to which they proposed to forbid such shipments, you would observe that they were those inhabited by dark-skinned peoples; but some of these peoples had gold that was no darker than any other gold, and Budd’s could see no reason for not doing business with them.
Beauty wrote Robbie the news about Irma Barnes, and of course that touched the father deeply. He telegraphed, offering to come to the Riviera and interview Mrs. Barnes and try to straighten matters out; a day or two later, when he learned that the ladies had fled to Rome, he offered to travel there. Lanny and his mother had quite an argument about it, and settled it by agreeing that each should wire what he and she had to say. Beauty said: “Beg you to come. Your action might be decisive.” Lanny said: “Always glad to see you but don’t want intervention in personal matter.” Receiving those conflicting messages, Robbie decided that it would be pleasant to have a swim and a sail in the Golfe Juan; also to see Beauty’s new husband. He stepped into a plane for Paris, and next morning stepped out of the night express at Cannes.
After having heard all sides of the story, Robbie found it hard to decide whether his son was being quixotic or whether he didn’t really care enough about the girl. Anyhow, it seemed certain that the “wop” was going to get her. There were Rome newspapers to be bought in Cannes, and Lanny had some of them, and translated for his father accounts of the “to-do” that was being made over the American heiress. “That’s what they both enjoy,” said Lanny, “and I’m just not equipped to play that game.”
“It’s possible that I might be able to make some impression on the old lady,” said the father.
“You don’t know her,” replied the son. “She’d light up one of her cigars and blow the smoke into your face and read you a lecture on your loose ways of life. She hates men, and she’d be sure you were just another fortune-hunter.”
“I used to know J. Paramount,” commented Robbie, “so I can understand her distrust of men.”
He decided to forget the matter and enjoy a few days’ rest, which Lanny said he appeared to need. He didn’t feel right until he had had a drink in the morning, and his hand trembled as he lifted the glass. “To hell with all this money!” exclaimed the son. “You’re doing what J. Paramount did—killing yourself for what your heirs won’t know how to make use of.”
Lanny got his father out in the sailboat, but it wasn’t very restful, because Robbie had a long story to tell of troubles with his oil business; he was an outsider and a little fellow, and it appeared that the big fellows resented intrusion, and were even more unscrupulous in the oil game than in munitions. Robbie was more than ever convinced that Zaharoff was maneuvering him into a position where he would have to sell out; but Robbie wouldn’t give up, because it was a matter of pride with him—he had got his friends into this thing, and he didn’t want to have to take a licking. He had hopes of getting his way now, because he and his friends had got a new President of the United States. This was an oil man, like Robbie himself, one who had made a fortune in the game, and so knew what it took. Hoover was his name, and he was known to his admirers as “the Great Engineer.” To Robbie his inauguration meant the coming of a new era of efficiency and prosperity to his country, and perhaps to the whole world, which would learn from America how to manage large-scale business.
Yes, Robbie said, the British would have to give protection to American investors in Arabia and elsewhere under British mandate, or else the Americans would find ways to do it themselves. Robbie meant to visit Monte Carlo and tell Zaharoff about this change in the world situation; but when he phoned he learned that the old spider was up in Paris, or perhaps at the Château de Balincourt, his estate in Seine-et-Oise. Robbie went north, saying that he would call on him there.
VII
Lanny didn’t realize how fond he had become of Irma Barnes until it was
too late. He tried Chopin’s nocturnes again, but they didn’t work. She had been such pleasant company, and it would have been so easy to make love to her; he had just got himself to the point where he was ready to begin, and to have her whisked away was most disconcerting. He told himself that for her own good he ought to have taken her. She was a child, and had no idea of the trap she had walked into. Fascism represented the lowest degradation of women that had been on the continent of Europe since the days of old Turkey. What sort of brood-mare would she make, that high-spirited American girl? If she tried to kick over the traces, they would take her money away from her, and her children—they would break her heart. When he imagined what might happen, he had an impulse to fly to Rome and save her. But no, they wouldn’t even let him in; to say nothing of letting him out again!
Zoltan Kertezsi showed up with news and proposals about pictures; and that was a good thing. Even thinking about being engaged to a glamour girl put the “kibosh” on Lanny’s little private industry; what were the few thousands which he could earn compared with the millions he would have if he became Mr. Irma Barnes? Mere chicken-feed, beneath his dignity to think about! But now Zoltan said that the time had come to have an exhibition of Marcel’s work in London; he proposed to rent a gallery for the last two weeks in June, and then in the autumn to take the pictures to New York for a showing. As before, he said that the thing to do was to sell a few works at very high prices, and thus confer honor upon the rest; he said that, with business booming as it was in both the great cities, people simply didn’t know what to do with their money; they wanted to be asked fancy prices, because that was the only way to be sure that what they got was excellent.