“It’s hard to explain.”
“Do the best you can.”
“I gave my trust to a man, and I bore him two sons; then gradually I discovered that he was horrible in his habits.”
“So you decided that all love is horrible?”
“No, not that. I decided I wouldn’t stoop to his level. I would do my duty, even though he might fail in his.”
“Of course you want to do your duty; you’re that sort of person. The question is, what is your duty? Because one man isn’t what he ought to be doesn’t mean that all men are. Are my habits horrible?”
“No, Lanny, of course not.”
“Because one love fails, does that mean that all love must be stifled? Are you a Hindu woman, who has to give herself to the flames with her husband’s corpse?”
She said “No” again, but her voice was faint. His analogy was a rather violent one.
“What else?” he persisted; and as she hesitated, he went on: “You were brought up a Catholic, and you’ve been realizing that you don’t believe all that. What about their ideas on the subject of the sex-life? Have you some of those superstitions still in your mind? They separate the love of the body from the love of the soul, and so they degrade both. The love of the body alone is a shame, and the love of the soul alone is a neurosis. Do you get what I mean?”
“I suppose so, Lanny.” She generally did.
He had thought very carefully what he wished to say to her. He didn’t wish to rush her off her feet, but to appeal to her judgment. Now he spoke slowly and precisely, as if it were a speech that he had learned. “If I should love you, I would love you all the ways there are. It would be a clean love, and an honest one, that you wouldn’t have to be ashamed of. I would be kind and gentle; you wouldn’t have to make any painful discoveries. I’ve had opportunities with women, but it’s been a year and a half since I’ve taken one in my arms. That’s not such a bad record for this part of the world—and for these post-war days. I have learned to control myself, and to know what I am doing; so I have a right to ask a woman to trust me. Doesn’t that seem reasonable?”
“Yes, Lanny.” Her voice had grown fainter still.
IX
For one of his age, Lanny Budd had acquired a considerable store of knowledge as to the structure and functioning of the feminine heart. At the age of thirteen he had discovered that his mother was the amie of a French painter, and had talked this situation out with her. As a result of the discretion thus acquired, he had become eligible for the pleasure cruise of the Bluebird, and had heard the conversation and observed the conduct of a group of ladies and gentlemen who might have come out of the Decameron of Boccaccio. Immediately afterward he had had the responsibility of helping his mother decide whether she was going to stick by her poor painter or be respectably married to a plate-glass millionaire from Pittsburgh. The war having come, Lanny and Beauty had read the romances of Stendhal and Anatole France together and discussed the opinions of these two authorities on love. After Marcel had been brought home with his face burned off, Lanny had helped his mother to nurse him back to life, and there wasn’t much he didn’t find out about those two in the process.
His own experiences, both on the Côte d’Azur and on the shore of Long Island, had taught him much, and in between his labors at the Peace Conference he had learned about his mother and his boyhood friend. He had built a love-nest, and watched two turtles pair who never meant to part. Furthermore, his head was full of phrases from the love-poets of England, France, and Germany, plus translations from the ancient Greeks. All that lore he was now putting at the service of Marie de Bruyne, who had told herself that her heart was a desert where no flowers could bloom or bird-songs be heard.
She said something obvious but painful: “Lanny, I am much too old a woman for you!”
He answered: “There are a few things you can leave to me, and that’s one. I’ve met no end of young girls, and they’re fun to dance with, and even to get thrills from; but when they try to make intellectual conversation it just doesn’t come off. All my life I’ve spent time with older people, my mother and father and their friends; maybe that was a mistake, but, anyhow, it’s made me so that I like to talk to you. When I say something about a book, you know what I mean, and if you answer, I learn something new, and that makes conversation a pleasure. Don’t you think that’s a part of love worth considering?”
“Yes, dear; but it mightn’t be like that always.”
“Always is a word too big for everyday use. None of us knows what he’s going to be ten years from now; but if we have sense we can know what we are now, and what we need. I’m pretty sure you could make me happy, and I’d stand a chance to make you happy. The more I think about it the better I know that it would be lovely to take you in my arms. I could take you out of those dreadful memories that torment you; I could make love something different, so that you wouldn’t go around looking like a mask of grief.”
“Is that the way I appear?” she asked, as if shocked.
“That’s the phrase I used to myself the day I saw you at Mrs. Emily’s. But already the magic of love has been at work. You do love me a little, don’t you?”
“Yes, Lanny,” she whispered.
“Well, then, you have to choose—a great happiness or a great torment. Prudery, or monkery, or whatever you call it, says renunciation and loneliness; common sense says companionship and peace. Which do you want?”
“If it were only as simple as that, dear! But we live in the world!”
“Oh, yes; we have laws and conventions, and relatives and friends, and gossip and scandal, and superstitions that poison life and strangle happiness. What else?”
“You really think we have a right to do what we please?”
“I think that what you and I do in the privacy of our life would concern us very deeply, and concern no one else on this earth.”
“I have two children.”
“I don’t begrudge you your children, and I don’t want to take your love from them. There’s plenty and to spare in your heart, I am sure.”
“But they would find out about us, Lanny!”
“When I was thirteen and discovered that my mother was in love with Marcel Detaze, I told her that I wouldn’t stand in the way of her happiness. Marcel became an extra father to me, and we never had one moment’s difference in our lives.”
“But that’s extraordinary, Lanny.”
“It may seem so to one who has been brought up to believe that love is sin; but I was brought up to believe in my reason. I take it as a matter of course that I should love you, and be kind to you, and do everything I could to make you happy—provided only you didn’t let some black-robed priest tell you that I’ve lured you into mortal sin.”
“No, Lanny, it’s not that. But your mother would hate me dreadfully!”
“My mother has a dream for me to marry some divinely beautiful and fabulously rich daughter of the aristocracy, preferably English. When I was sixteen I had my first love affair with the granddaughter of an earl, but she turned me down for the grandson of another earl, and since then I have been more modest in my aspirations. You would suit me perfectly, and when my mother realizes that the matter is settled, she will adjust herself to it and perhaps bore you with her excess of kindness.”
“But you ought to marry and have children!”
“I haven’t any money to marry, and I don’t seem to have any desire to reproduce myself. I have a delightful little half-sister at home, and Beauty insists upon spoiling her, so I have to take Marcel’s place many a time. I know what he would say and I say it, and so my paternal impulses get satisfied. What I need right now is not a child, but friendship and happiness, and those are a part of love’s gifts worth having and cherishing.”
Her eyelids had dropped and he saw that her lips were trembling. He moved over to the sofa beside her and said: “I would like to kiss you.” When she did not say no, he put his arms about her and gently touched his lips to her che
ek. After a while he drew back his head and looked at her. “What do you say?”
“Lanny,” she whispered, “I ought not decide such a thing in a hurry. I ought to think about it.”
“That is fair,” he answered; he released her and took one of her hands instead. “If you are going to be happy, you mustn’t do anything that your reason and conscience don’t approve.”
“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed. “That’s the way to be kind!”
“How long do you want?”
“I don’t know. I’ll send for you. It’s all so startling to me, so different from what I’ve been taught to feel. Play me something gentle and tender—like yourself.” He played the Brahms Cradle Song, slowly and softly, and while he played he imagined that she was in his arms.
X
The young prodigal went home, and there was his mother, waiting in great anxiety. It would have been hard for him to conceal the shine in his eyes; he had never lied to her about matters of love, or indeed about anything except world diplomacy when that had been his job. Now he said: “Well, old girl, I followed your suggestion and had a talk with Marie about being in love with her.”
“Oh, my God!” cried the mother. As he smiled teasingly, she clamored: “Well? What happened?”
“She wanted time to think it over, and I gave it to her. But I’m not sure that was wise. What do you think?”
Beauty thought a lot, and said it. He let her pour out her feelings, and ruin several handkerchiefs.
“See here,” he said, at last. “You know what I did for you and Marcel, and what I’m doing now for you and Kurt. You owe me a debt, and you have to repay it. That’s all there is to it, and you might as well pay up like a good sport.”
“Oh, Lanny!” she sobbed. “I tried so hard to find you the right woman!”
“I know, dear; but you remember what Dr. Bauer-Siemans told me when I was a kid, that I couldn’t expect to know what sort of man my mother needed. Now it’s the other way around. You presented me to various young ladies who ought to have made me happy, but they didn’t. I went out and found one for myself, and, believe me, I haven’t any idea of letting her get away from me.”
“A woman old enough to be your mother. Lanny!”
He had expected that from Marie, but not from Beauty. “Old goose!” he laughed. “Don’t talk too loud or Kurt may hear you!”
“Yes, Lanny, but—”
“But that was you, while this is some other woman! What is sauce for one goose is sauce for any other.”
Argument was so hopeless that she had to share his laughter, even while she went on sobbing. He went to the drawer of her dressing-table and brought her a handful of the tiny, delicate ouchoirs that ladies use; he dropped them into her lap, and said: “Cheer up, old dear. It isn’t as if I’d gone out and picked up a tart on the boulevard. I’ve got one of the sweetest women you ever knew, and when you make up your mind to appreciate her you’ll have a sister. It’ll make our household hopelessly queer, I know—”
“Oh, Lanny!” she gasped. “Are you expecting to bring her here?”
“I couldn’t on account of her husband; we mustn’t take any chances of attracting attention to Kurt. Marie and I will work matters out by ourselves.”
“Oh, dear, oh, dear!” lamented Beauty. “I was hoping to make our lives more respectable!”
Poor soul, he knew that this was the deepest longing of her heart; but there was nothing he could do except to go on laughing. “You began it!” he said.
“I know! I never really blame anybody else.”
“Your chickens have come home to roost!” Lanny was young, and it seemed to him best to enjoy life as he went along. “They are roosting all over this baby-blue boudoir, and you and Kurt can hear them chirping on the headboard of your bed!”
5
Weep for the World’s Wrong
I
Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson was sticking with his British tenacity at the job of learning to write. He had got several editors interested in his efforts, and every now and then would get a new idea and work furiously at it. When it was done, Lanny would find it “swell,” but Rick would frequently declare it “putrid” and want to tear it up. Between the litter of manuscripts and the litter of a baby it was hard to keep the little villa in order, but Nina worked cheerfully, declaring that after what they had been through, it was happiness just to be alive. From time to time Beauty would decide that they were lonely, and would get up a picnic or sailing party, which really they didn’t care about very much; but Beauty did.
One morning near the end of April Rick telephoned to Lanny and read a telegram from the editor of a liberal weekly in London. There was a conference of the Allied premiers opening at San Remo, a town on the Italian Riviera, and the editor suggested that Rick might like to try his luck with an article about it. The editor couldn’t promise to take what he wrote, but he said there was a story in this conference, and it was up to a youngster to get the facts and present them acceptably. Rick considered this a great chance, and he was proposing to take a train that afternoon. Would Lanny like to go along?
Lanny didn’t hesitate. “I’ll drive you,” he said. “Maybe I can help you get in on the inside.”
Less than a year had passed since Lanny had registered a vow that he was through with international politics and the pompous bigwigs and solemn stuffed shirts who made the headlines at conferences. But time heals all wounds, and the war-horse resting in the pasture smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting. Lanny wouldn’t have admitted to himself that he wanted to gaze once more upon the cherubic countenance of David Lloyd George, or to see what the Frenchman Millerand or the Italian Nitti looked like; but when it was a question of helping Rick to get a story and perhaps make a reputation for himself, the devoted friend went into his dressing-room and started chucking his things into a couple of bags.
Meanwhile, of course, he was thinking about Marie. If only she would be sensible, what a delightful holiday they might make of it! Really an education for her! He’d not fail to give her the chance. He put his bags into the car, and gave Beauty a couple of hugs, and promised to drive carefully—there had been a dreadful accident to one of her friends the previous week. “All right—yes—I’ll keep my eyes open.” He shook hands with Kurt and told him to get that fiesta part of the Spanish suite into shape. Lanny couldn’t say how long he’d be gone—one could never tell about those talk-fests of politicians—he’d stick by Rick and help him get about—good-by and good luck—
“Lanny, tell me!” exclaimed Beauty. “Are you going to take that woman?”
“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies!” he chuckled.
II
Marie was alone in the house, except for the servant. He led her into the garden, where there couldn’t be any eavesdropping. Three days had passed since he had left her, and he hoped that was time enough for thinking. He looked into her eyes to find an answer, but instead there seemed to be anxiety.
“Something exciting has happened,” he said.
“What, Lanny?”
“There’s an old town about ten miles inside Italy called San Remo. It looks out over our sea but it’s older, and has a grand old Romanesque cathedral.” (Lanny was grinning, for he didn’t really think she’d want to see cathedrals.) “There are good hotels, and I’ve no doubt nice respectable pensioni where you get ravioli when you don’t get spaghetti.”
“I have been to San Remo, Lanny.”
“A charming place for a holiday, don’t you agree? Rick and I are leaving as soon as you can get your things packed. There’s to be an international conference—a whopping big one—all the diplomatic world. Rick has an assignment to write it up and it may be the making of him.”
“What an idea, Lanny—to take me to a conspicuous place like that! I couldn’t fail to meet people who know me.”
“Make it a brother-and-sister party. Stay at the most respectable place in the town. Arrive by tr
ain if you like, and meet me by accident.”
“But nobody would believe that.”
“Surely you have a right to be interested in international affairs! Aren’t you curious to see the master minds who are making the world safe for democracy? You can stay in some near-by town if you prefer, and if you and I should disappear now and then—cosi fan tutti!”
“Lanny, it is sweet of you; but I’ve just had a letter with troubling news. My little Charlot is down with that dreadful flu, and I may have to take him out of school.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” he exclaimed.
“You see, dear, I just don’t belong to myself. You can’t think of me as you would of a debutante.”
“I wouldn’t think of a debutante. Where will you take the boy?”
“To our country place in Seine-et-Oise.”
“Does that mean going back to your husband?”
“Not as his wife—never, Lanny. We can live in the same house and be polite to each other, as we have done in the past. He has a right to see the children, and I don’t want to divorce him and make a scandal that would hurt them. These matters are different with us from what they are with you Americans.”
“What is going to be your husband’s attitude to our affair? Will he be jealous, or will he be glad to be let alone?”
“I don’t know, Lanny. I’ve tried hard to think what to do. There are many painful possibilities. I am afraid of marring my children’s life, and yours, too.”
“Listen, darling,” he said. “It’s all right to worry about your children, but please don’t take me on. There’s no harm that you can do me, I assure you. I know what I want, and I mean to get it—the cost is no obstacle. I’ll gladly tell the world that I love you. I’ll put an advertisement in the papers for all the scandal-mongers to read. I’ll put a sign on my back and parade up and down in front of your house: ‘J’aime Marie de Bruyne!”
She couldn’t keep from laughing. “Please, dear,” she pleaded, “give me time. Take Rick and let him do his story. I’m waiting for a telegram about my son, and I’ll write you later.”