I
BEAUTY stayed a couple of weeks, and so did Robbie, with the result that Lanny's life became what the newspapers call one continuous round of social gaieties. Beauty gave a tennis party, with afternoon tea, and a row of fashionable ladies decorating the sidelines. She gave a dinner party, with dancing on the loggia, and Venetian lanterns hanging, and an orchestra from Cannes. When they were not having or preparing things like these, they were motoring to the homes of friends up and down the coast, for motorboat races, or bridge, or fireworks, or whatever it might be.
Lanny had his part in these events. People who had heard about “Dalcroze” would ask for a demonstration, and he would oblige them without having to be begged. Lady Eversham-Watson put up her ivory and gold lorgnette and drawled: “Chawming!” and the Baroness de la Tourette lifted her hands with a dozen diamonds and emeralds on them and exclaimed: “Ravissant/” — all exactly as Lanny had foreseen. This attention and applause did not spoil him, because it was his plan to take up the role of teacher, and here was a beginning. He liked to please people, and everybody loved him for it; or at any rate they said they did, and Lanny took the world for the gay and delightful thing it strove so hard to appear.
It was a world of people who had money. Lanny had always taken it for granted that everybody had it. He had never known any poor people; or, to be more exact, he had never known about their poverty. The servants worked hard, but they were well paid and had plenty to eat and enjoyed working in the rich homes, knowing the rich people and gossiping about their ways. The Provencal peasants partook of nature's bounty, and were independent and free-spoken. The fishermen went to sea and caught fish; they had done that all their lives, and liked to do it, and were healthy, and drank wine and sang and danced. If now and then one was hurt, or lost his boat, a collection would be taken, and Lanny would tell Beauty about it and she would contribute.
The rich people had the function of exhibiting elegance and grace to the world, and the Céte d'Azur was a place set apart for that performance. It was the winter playground of Europe; the wealthy and fashionable came from all over the world and either built themselves homes or stayed in luxurious hotels, dressing in the latest fashions and displaying themselves on waterfront parade grounds such as the Boulevard de la Croisette in Cannes and the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. They danced and played baccarat and roulette, golf and tennis; they motored and sailed, and ate arid drank in public, and lay about on the beaches under gaily striped umbrellas. Photographers took pictures of them, and newspapers and magazines all over the world paid high prices for them, and so the exhibition of elegance had become a large-scale business.
The ladies who lent their charms to this parade were spoken of as professional beauties, and they took their profession with the same seriousness as a physician takes the healing of bodies or a priest the saving of souls. It was an exacting occupation and left its devotees little time to think about anything else; during the exhibition periods, known as “seasons,” they made it a rule to change their costumes four times a day, thus keeping the cameramen on the jump; during the “off seasons” they hardly got a chance to recuperate, because they had to spend their time planning with couturiers and marchands de modes and others to keep them at the head of the next procèssion.
It would seem as if a woman by the name of Beauty Budd had been especially cut out for such a career. And she might have had it, but for the fact that she was so poor. All she had was this home, and a thousand dollars a month which Robbie allowed her. He was strict with her; had made her promise not to incur debts, and never to gamble unless it was a business matter, with Robbie himself taking part. Of course you couldn't take that too literally; she had to play bridge, and couldn't very well insist upon paying cash for the clothes she ordered — the makers would have thought there was something wrong with her.
Thus in the view of Lanny Budd the meaning of “being poor” was that his lovely mother was outclassed in the race for attention. She would never be listed as one of the “ten best-dressed women of Paris.” Fortunately she was of a happy disposition and did not let these hardships mar her life; she learned to make a joke of them, and also a virtue. She would talk about her unwillingness to “pay the price,” a remark which some of her friends might have resented as a reflection upon themselves.
But these were matters beyond Lanny's understanding as yet. He would try to console his mother. “I'm glad you're poor. If you weren't, I wouldn't see even a little of you!”
She would hug him, and tears would come into the lovely blue eyes. “You're the best thing in the whole world, and I'm a foolish woman ever to think about anything else!”
“That's the way I'd like it!” Lanny would grin.
II
The reason why Robbie stayed so long on this trip was that he had another deal on, and Beauty was helping him. That was an aspect of their relationship which Lanny had learned about, and in which he also took part according to his abilities. Customers had to be met “socially,” something far more effective than mere business acquaintanceship. In the latter case they would be thinking only about money, but in the former they would like you; at any rate they would pretend they did, and you would try to make it real. You had to “entertain” them, and for this purpose what could be more helpful than a woman with the charms of Beauty Budd? For this well-recognized part of the selling of munitions Robbie paid generously.
The Russian Minister of War would be planning to visit Paris with his wife. Robbie had scouts who kept him posted, and he would telegraph Beauty, who would at once inquire among her friends and find someone who knew either the minister or his wife, and would invite them down for a few days to warm their old bones. Beauty would meet them and make an engagement for tea, and wire Robbie, who would come in a shiny new car and take the tired old couple motoring, and show them the Corniche road, and maybe let them have a fling in the Casino at Monte Carlo.
Robbie's agents would have provided him with a regular dossier about such guests, including their tastes and their weaknesses. Beauty would have several duchesses and countesses at the tea party, and when the minister took his seat at the gaming table, Robbie would slip him a bundle of thousand-franc notes and tell him laughingly to take a “flier” for him. The old gentleman would do so, and if he lost Robbie would tell him to forget it, and if he won he would forget it without being told. Later, when Robbie would tell him news about the marvelous new sub-machine gun which Budd's were putting on the market, the minister would be deeply interested and would make a date for Robbie to demonstrate it in St. Petersburg.
When Robbie was leaving to keep that date, he would say to Beauty: “I can't motor to St. Petersburg. I'd get stuck like Napoleon in the snow.” Yes, there was snow in Russia, impossible as it might seem in Juan-les-Pins, where everybody lay around on the beach absorbing sunshine. “That old car of yours is beginning to look shabby,” he would add. “You better take mine. But don't let anybody swindle you on the old one; you ought to get five or six thousand francs for it at least.” If Beauty protested that he was too generous, Robbie had a formula: “It goes on the expense account.”
A marvelous phenomenon, the expense account of a munitions salesman, which could be stretched to include both his business and his pleasures. It included the newspaper man who brought the tip, and the detective who prepared the dossier. It included the car, and the chauffeur, and the gambling losses. It included the tea party and, strange to say, it might even include some of the duchesses and countesses — those who were so important that it was an honor for a Russian cabinet minister to meet them, instead of for them to meet a Russian cabinet minister.
Such subtle distinctions you had to know thoroughly if you wanted to land contracts. The great ladies knew their own value and the value of the service expected. If it was to get the wife and daughter of an American millionaire presented at the Court of St. James's, that might be worth a thousand pounds; but if it was Just a matter of introducing you to a politician or a financier, that might be done for a thousand francs.
Of course there were members of the nobility who were not for sale. Some English milords were so rich they could afford to be dignified. Some of the old French families were poor as church mice, but chose to live in retirement, dress dowdily, and pray for the return of the Bourbon pretender. But the people Robbie Budd made use of belonged to the grand monde; their pleasure was to shine in public, and the ladies especially were frequently in debt and ravenous for money. Beauty made it her business to know them, and with her woman's tact she would find out what service they could render and what they would expect. Some were frank, and would name their price and be prepared to haggle over it; others took a high tone, and said they would do it to oblige dear, darling Beauty. These were the persons who got more.
Thus Lanny, opening his eyes to the world in which he was to live, came to realize that among the swarms of elegant and showy people who passed through his home there were all sorts and sizes, and each had to be treated differently. A few were friends whom his mother loved and trusted; others were there for business reasons, and might turn out to be “horrid people,” who would go off and say mean things about her behind her back. When that happened she would cry, and Lanny would want to kick those false friends the next time he met them. But that was another lesson of the grand monde which you had to learn; you never kicked anybody, but on the contrary were as effusive as ever, and the most you allowed yourself was a sly little thrust with a sharp stiletto of wit.
III
The new deal was to be with Rumania, which was about to supply part of its army with automatic pistols; this had become necessary because Bulgaria had just done the same. Several countries in southeastern Europe had fought two wars among themselves in the past three years, and no one could guess when the next one would start, or who would be fighting whom. Budd's was putting out for the European trade a new eight-cartridge 7.65 mm. automatic which it claimed was the best in the world. Of course Robbie always had to claim that, but in this case he told Lanny that he really believed it.
He had in Paris a fellow by the name of “Bub” Smith, who had been a cowboy and could shoot the head off a hatpin, and would have done it while the hat was on a lady's head if there had been any female willing to face a William Tell from Texas. Robbie had arranged for this man to come whenever needed, because army officers were generally so impressed by good marksmanship that they would attribute it to the gun. Now he was going to bring Bub to the Riviera to meet a certain Captain Bragescu, a member of the commission which was making preliminary investigations prior to the final tests in Bucharest. Robbie laughed about that phrase “preliminary investigations,” which meant that the captain wanted to look into Robbie's pocketbook before he looked into his pistol.
The captain arrived unannounced, just after Robbie and Beauty had gone off to a dinner dance. A taxi drew up in front of “Bien-venu,” the bell at the gate tinkled, and Rosine ushered into Lanny's presence a mincing and elegant figure with mustaches dyed black and twisted to sharp points, in a sky-blue military uniform fitting tightly and drawn in at the waist so that you knew he was wearing corsets. You might have found it hard to believe that an army officer would have his cheeks painted and powdered and would smell strongly of perfume, but so it was.
Lanny was embarrassed, because he had on some old fishing togs and a fisherboy named Ruggiero was waiting for him down on the beach. But he welcomed the guest courteously, and explained where his father and mother had gone, and offered to telephone them at once. “Oh, no!” said Captain Bragescu. “I would not think of interfering with their engagement.”
An idea occurred to Lanny. “I wonder if you'd be interested in seeing torch-fishing.”
“What do you get?” asked the officer. It turned out that he had done a lot of fishing at home.
So Lanny ran down to the boathouse, where there were some of Robbie's old clothes and a warm sweater — for it turns cold on the Riviera the moment the sun disappears behind the Estèrels. The captain took off his corsets, and proved to be not in the least effeminate. Down the beach they met an Italian fisherboy, a year or two older than Lanny, and strong as his work required. The Rumanian spoke good French, but had trouble with a mixture of Provencal and Ligurian, so Lanny had to help out.
While Ruggiero rowed the heavy boat out toward the Cap, the army officer told about the fishing he had seen in his boyhood, at the mouth of the Danube, for the huge sturgeon. It was a rather ghastly procedure, for they cut out the roe, containing seven million eggs, and then threw the fish back alive. This was the black caviar, the epicure's delight — but Lanny wouldn't enjoy it quite so much for a while.
The sea was smooth except for long swells, and when the torch was blazing you could see much farther into the depths than you could reach with the trident. Peering down among the rocks, you would see a langouste poking out his greenish-gray head. You would get the three-pronged spear poised above him and strike, and up he would come, snapping his heavy tail back and forth. He was pleasanter to have in the boat than an American lobster, because he had no big claws that might take off one of your fingers.
Also, there were fishes of many hues and sizes; they seemed to be dazzled by the light, and even an amateur like the captain could hit one now and then. Presently he saw a head underneath some waving branches of a sea. plant; he struck, and was all but jerked into the water. “Look out!” shouted the fisherboy, and leaped to help him. It was fortunate the officer didn't have those corsets on, for now he needed every particle of muscle and wind he had.
They brought up a huge green moray, the largest of all the eels, and the most dangerous. Ruggiero gaffed him, but cried: “Don't haul him into the boat!” He clubbed and stabbed the creature until the life was all gone out of him, for he had teeth as sharp as razor blades. He was more than six feet long, and when you saw him down in the water you thought he was clad in elegant green velvet.
He had been esteemed as a food fish ever since the days of the ancient Romans; so the pair had a fine story to tell Beauty and Robbie in the morning. Lanny's reputation as an entertainer of customers was much enhanced; for Captain Bragescu might have thought that dinner dances were got up for business reasons, but he couldn't doubt that this eager lad really admired his prowess as a fisherman.
IV
Bub Smith showed up on the morning train; a stocky fellow with a funny flat face — his nose had been broken in a fall from a horse and there had been nobody to set it, so he just let it stay as it was. But there was nothing the matter with either his eyes or his hands. “I'm feeling fine this morning,” he said; “I could shoot holes through the side of a barn.” He looked at Lanny with a twinkle in his pale blue eyes; they were old pals, and Bub had taught Lanny cowboy songs. He was introduced to the army captain, and was just about speechless at the spectacle of a man with paint and powder on his face and corsets under his sky-blue uniform.
Well, they motored back into the hills, where there was a little valley with a heavy forest of eucalyptus, and a peasant who for a few francs would let them shoot holes in his trees. The chauffeur lugged a couple of heavy boxes out of the car, one with the 7.65 mm. automatics and the other with the cartridges; Bub took a cardboard target and tacked it onto a big tree about thirty paces away. Meantime Robbie was loading the pistols. “I want to show you how quickly it can be done,” he said. Pretty soon Bub took his stand, and quick as a flash threw up his arm and fired. The shots came so fast it was just a whir, and there was the target with the central bull's eye shot clean out.
Captain Bragescu, of course, was enraptured by such a performance. Pierre, the chauffeur, ran and got the target for them. You could see parts of the circle made by each bullet, but there wasn't any hole that wasn't part of one big hole. “I'll take that back to Bucharest with me!” said the captain.
“Wait,” replied Bub; “I'll make you a few more.” So they tacked up another target, and Bub took a different gun and did it again; he was ready to do it as long as the ammunition held out.
But the officer was convinced. “C'est bon” he said. He wouldn't be too enthusiastic, for it was a matter of business, but he repeated several times: “Oui, c'est bon.”
He tried it himself, and spattered the target all over with his shots. Bub showed him how to swing up the gun, and how to keep it from jerking, and then he did better. Robbie took his turn. He knew all about shooting, of course, and apologized to the captain for being too good; it was just a matter of understanding this remarkable weapon, he said.
Then Lanny took his turn. The army weapon was too heavy for him, but he had brought along his own thirty-two. Lanny was pretty good, but nobody seemed really good after Bub Smith. When, the captain learned that Bub had been a cowboy, he exclaimed:
“Ca s'explique! I have seen them in the cinema. We need men who can ride and shoot like that in Rumania. We are troubled with mountaineers who don't like to pay taxes.”
V
They went home to lunch, and Beauty had some friends in; but you could see that Beauty herself was company enough for Bragescu. He could hardly take his eyes off this delicate creation in pink and cream and gold. She, being used to that sort of thing, was kind, but sedate and never the least bit flirtatious. Lanny always got plenty of motherly attention at such times. He was too young to understand these subtleties, but he played up to her all the same, and they made a sweet and sentimental pair.
It was the Baroness de la Tourette who was supposed to do the entertaining of the officer. Sophie Timmons had been her maiden name, and her father owned a chain of hardware factories in several towns of the Middle West. He sent his only daughter lots of money, but never enough for her husband the baron, who lived in Paris and had very expensive tastes. The baroness had one of those henna heads, and had what you might call a henna laugh; she talked fast and loud, half in French and half in English, and was considered to be the life of every party. Lanny was too young to observe that while she chattered her eyes would roam restlessly, as if her mind were not entirely on her work. She was his mother's best friend, and had a kind heart in spite of all her smartness.
The captain was taken off by Robbie to have the drawings of the Budd automatic pistol explained to him. Afterward they all went for a sail, and watched the sun sink into the Mediterranean; then they dressed and went to Cannes to dine at a fashionable resort, and later came home to play poker. Lanny was just getting into bed when he heard them come in and settle themselves at the table, and he peeked in at the door for a bit.
They made a pretty sight in front of the big open fire of crackling pine; the men in evening dress, except the Rumanian in a blue and gold dress uniform; the ladies in lovely soft dresses cut halfway down their smooth white backs. They had picked up friends at the restaurant, including Lord and Lady Eversham-Watson. She was another rich American who had married a title, but she had used better judgment; his lordship was a large, solid, and rather dull gentleman past middle age, but he admired his gay wife and liked to see her shine in company. She was a talkative little woman who managed him and made it acceptable by joking; her money came out of a Kentucky whisky known as “Petries' Peerless.”
Lanny had never been taught to play poker, but had watched it sometimes. They might still be playing when he woke up in the morning, and would go on playing most of the day; he was used to the sight of Petries' Peerless and soda bottles on the side table, and half-empty glasses, and the not very pleasant odor of stale tobacco smoke, and little ashtrays filled with stubs. He was used to hearing how “rotten” his father was as a poker player, and would smile to himself, for this was one of the secrets which he shared with Robbie, who used as much skill in losing as other people did in trying to win.
Always to the right man, of course! This time Captain Bragescu would be the lucky one. Robbie, bland and smiling, would drav cards every time, and wait until the captain gave signs of having a strong hand, then raise him, and finally quit and drop his cards without showing them. After this had happened a few times the captain would realize that it was safe for him to bet heavily, and when Robbie would propose to raise the limit, he would agree. This would go on for hours, until the lucky officer had most of the chips piled in front of him, and would think that he owned the world. At the end Robbie would say: “It's amazing how you've mastered our American game.” It was such a decent way to arrange a contract for guns that the captain could not fail to appreciate it. The guns were all right, of course, and the Rumanian army would be safe from the Bulgarians and able to capture the rebel mountaineers and collect the taxes.
VI
Robbie motored to Marseille to meet some member of his family who was coming from Egypt, and Beauty went to dance at a ball which a friend was giving in one of the white marble palaces on the heights above Nice. It would last until morning, and she would sleep there and return later. Lanny settled himself to the reading of a well-worn novel which somebody had picked up on a bookstall and left in the house.
It was a story about slum life on the outskirts of an American industrial town. The district was known as the “Cabbage Patch,” and in it lived an Irish washerwoman with a brood of children, all dreadfully poor, but so honest and good that it touched your heart. Lanny, whose heart was always being touched by one thing or another, found this the dearest and sweetest of stories. By next morning he was nearly through with it and, sitting in the warm sunshine of the court, with narcissus beds around him and a huge bougainvillaea throwing a purple mantle over the kitchen porch, he yearned to have been born in a slum, so that he might be so generous and kindhearted and hard-working and helpful to everybody around him.
There came a tinkling of the bell, and Lanny went to the front gate and was confronted by his Uncle Jesse, his mother's brother. Jesse Blackless was a painter of a sort — that is to say, he had a small income and didn't have to work. He lived in a fishing village some distance to the west, a place where “nobody ever went,” as Beauty phrased it. But it was just as well, because Jesse didn't seem to care about visitors, nor they about him; he lived alone in a cottage which he had fixed up in his own fashion. Lanny had been there once, when Uncle Jesse was sick and his sister felt it necessary to pay a duty call, taking along a basket of delicacies. That had been two or three years ago, and the boy had a vague memory of soiled dishes, a frying pan on the center table, and half a room filled with unframed paintings.
The artist was a man of forty or so, wearing a sport shirt open at the neck, a pair of linen trousers, not very well pressed, and tennis shoes dusty from his walk. He wore no hat, and his hair was gone entirely from the top, so that the brown dome was like a bronze Buddha's. He looked old for his years, and had many wrinkles around his eyes; when he smiled his mouth went a little crooked. His manner was quizzical, which made you think he was laughing at you, which wasn't quite polite. Lanny didn't know what it was, but he had got the impression that there was something wrong about his Uncle Jesse; Beauty saw him rarely, and if Robbie spoke of him, it was in a way implying disapproval. All the boy knew definitely was that Uncle Jesse had had a studio in Paris, and that Beauty had been visiting him at the time she met Robbie and fell in love.
Lanny invited him into the court and got him a chair and, as Uncle Jesse looked hot after his walk, called Rosine to bring some wine. “Mother's gone to the ball at Mrs. Dagenham Price's,” said the boy.
“She would,” was Jesse's comment.
“Robbie's gone to Marseille,” Lanny added.
“I suppose he's making lots of money.”
“I suppose so.” That was a subject Lanny did not discuss, so the conversation' lagged.
But then Lanny recalled the Salon des Indèpendants, and said he had been there. “Are they spoofing, or aren't they?” he asked.
“No doubt many of them are,” said Uncle Jesse. “Poor devils, they have to get something to eat, and what do critics or buyers know about original work?”
Lanny had picked up ideas concerning the graphic arts, as well as all the others. Many painters lived along the Céte d'Azur and reproduced its charms; a few were famous, and now and then someone would persuade Beauty that it was a cultural action to invite one to a tea party, or perhaps be taken to his studio to inspect his work. Now and then she would “fall for” something that was especially praised, and these hung as showpieces in the home. The most regarded was a blazing sunrise painted by a certain van Gogh, who had lived at Aries, which you passed when you motored to Paris; in fact he had gone crazy there and had cut off one of his ears. Also there was a pond covered with shining water lilies by Monet. These canvases were becoming so valuable that Beauty was talking about having them insured, but it cost so much that she kept putting it off.
VII
There was, of course, a limit to the amount of time that a specialist in the art of painting cared to devote to exchanging ideas with a youngster; so presently the conversation lagged again. Uncle Jesse watched the bees and the hummingbirds in the flowers, and then his eyes happened to fall upon Lanny's book, which had been laid back up on the grass. “What are you reading?” he inquired.
Lanny handed him the volume, and he smiled one of those twisted smiles. “It was a best-seller many years ago.”
“Have you read it?” inquired the boy.
“It's tripe,” replied Uncle Jesse.
Lanny had to be polite at all hazards, so after a moment he said: “It interests me because it tells about the slums, which I don't know about.”
“But wouldn't it be better,” asked the uncle, “if you went and looked at them, instead of reading sentimental nonsense about them?”
“I'd be interested,” replied the lad; “but of course there aren't any slums on the Riviera.”
Uncle Jesse wanted to laugh again, but there was such an earnest look in his nephew's eyes that he checked himself. “It happens that I'm going to pay a visit in a slum this afternoon. Would you like to come?”
The boy was much excited. It was exactly what he had been longing for, though without having formulated it. A “cabbage patch” in Cannes — imagine such a thing! And a woman who lived there for the same noble and idealistic reasons that Lanny had been dreaming about! “This woman is poor,” his uncle explained, “but she doesn't need to be. She is highly educated and could make money, but she prefers to live among the working people.”
Leese gave them some lunch, and then they walked to the tram and rode cheaply into the city. When they got off, they walked into the “old town,” picturesque and fascinating to tourists. They turned into a lane where the tall buildings came closer together at the top, and very little light got down. There are thousands of such tenements in towns all along the Mediterranean shore; built of stone, several stories high, and having been there for a hundred years or more. There will be steps in the street, and many turns, and archways, and courts with balconies above, and at the end perhaps a dead wall, or a glimpse of an old church, prompting the tourist to unsling his camera.
Of course Lanny knew that people lived in such tenements. Babies swarmed on the steps, with flies crawling over their sore eyes; chickens dodged beneath your feet, donkeys jostled you with their loads, and peddlers shouted their wares into your ears. But somehow when you were thinking about antiquities you forgot about human beings; things that are ancient and artistic are lifted into a different realm. The son of Beauty Budd might have walked through such “old towns” for years and never once had the idea of going inside for a visit. But now Uncle Jesse turned into one of the small doorways. It was dark inside, no electric light, not even gas; the steps felt as if they were made of rotten boards, and the odors seemed as old as the house. Doors were left ajar and fresh smells came out; food cooking, and clothes — “Let's hope they're in separate kettles,” said the sardonic visitor. Babies squalled, and one very nearly got caught between their legs. Yes, it was a “cabbage patch”!
VIII
The man knocked on a door, a voice called, and they went in. There appeared to be only one room; it had one window, and a woman was sitting near it. She seemed to be old, and was wrapped in a shawl; the light made a silhouette of her face, which was emaciated, and yellow in hue, as happens when the blood goes out of the skins of these swarthy Mediterranean people. Her face lighted when she saw who it was, and she greeted Jesse Blackless in French and held out to his nephew a hand in which he could feel all the bones.
The woman's name was Barbara Pugliese; pronounced Italian fashion, Pool-yay-say. They were evidently old friends, but had not met for some time. Uncle Jesse was anxious about her cough, and she said it was about the same; she was well taken care of, since many here loved her, and brought her food. She asked about Jesse's health, and then about his painting; he said that nobody paid any attention to it, but it kept him out of mischief — but perhaps that was just his way of making a joke.
They talked part of the time in Italian, of which Lanny understood only a little; perhaps they thought he didn't understand any. He gathered that they knew the same persons, and talked about what these were doing. They discussed international affairs, and the diplomats and statesmen, of whom they thought badly — but so did most people in France, the boy had observed. He knew the names of many politicians, but was hazy about parties and doctrines.
His eyes roamed over the room. It was small, the furniture scanty and plain. There was a single bed, or perhaps it was just a cot, with a couple of worn blankets on it; a chest of drawers; a table with odds and ends piled on it, mostly papers and pamphlets; a lot of books on a trunk — apparently no other place for them; a curtain covering one corner, presumably with clothes behind it. This was how you lived in a slum!
Lanny found himself watching the woman again. He had never seen so much grief in a face. To him suffering was a theme for art, so he found himself remembering Christian martyrs as painted by the Italian primitives; he kept trying to recall one of the saints of Cimabue. The woman's voice was soft and her manner gentle, and he decided that she was truly a saint; yes, she lived in this terrible place out of pity for the poor, and must be an even more wonderful person than Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.
When they went out Lanny hoped that Uncle Jesse would tell him about her; but the painter was an unsatisfying sort of companion. All he said was: “Well, you've seen a slum.”
“Yes, Uncle Jesse,” replied the boy humbly. Presently he added: “Don't you think we ought to take her some food, or something?”
“It wouldn't do any good. She'd just give it away.”
The man appeared to be wrapped up in his own thoughts, and Lanny hesitated to disturb him. But finally he asked: “Uncle Jesse, why do there have to be poor people like those?”
The other replied at once: “Because there are rich people like us.” That was confusing to the boy, who had always been led to believe that it was the rich people who gave the poor people work; he knew of cases in which they had done it out of kindness, because they were sorry for the poor.
Lanny tried again. “Why doesn't somebody clean up places like that?”
“Because somebody is making money out of them.”
“I don't mean the landlords,” Lanny explained. “I mean the city officials.”
“Maybe they're the landlords; or else they're collecting graft.”
“In France, Uncle Jesse?” Lanny had been given to understand that that happened only in America.
The painter laughed one of his disagreeable laughs. “They don't publish it here,” he said. They were in front of the Mairie, and he waved his hand toward it. “Go dig in there, and you'll find all you want.” As they walked on, he added: “As much as in the munitions industry.”
Of course Lanny couldn't discuss that, and perhaps his uncle knew it. Perhaps Uncle Jesse had argued too much in his life, and had grown tired of it. Anyhow, they had come to the tram, where their ways parted. The boy would ride home alone, because his uncle's home lay to the west, and a long way off. Lanny thanked him and said he had enjoyed the visit, and would think over what he had seen and heard. Uncle Jesse smiled another of his twisted smiles, and said: “Don't let it worry you.”
IX
Walking from the tram in Juan, Lanny had got to the gate of his home when a car tooted behind him, and there was Robbie just arriving. They greeted each other, and Robbie said: “Where have you been?” When Lanny replied: “I went to Cannes with Uncle Jesse,” the father's manner changed in an unexpected way.
“Does that fellow come here?” he demanded. The boy answered that it was the first time in a long while. Robbie took him into, the house, and called Beauty into her room, and Lanny also, and shut the door.
It.was the first time the boy had ever seen his father really angry. Lanny was put through a regular cross-examination, and when he told about Barbara Pugliese, his father exploded in bad language, and the boy learned some of the things that Uncle Jesse had not chosen to explain to him.
The woman was a prominent leader of the “syndicalist” movement. That was a long word, and Lanny didn't know what it meant, until Robbie said that for practical purposes it was the same as anarchism. The boy had heard enough about that, for every once in a while a bomb would go off and kill some ruler or prime minister or general, and perhaps some innocent bystanders. It had happened in Russia, in Austria, Spain, Italy, even in France; it was the work of embittered and deadly conspirators, nihilists, terrorists, men and women seeking to destroy all organized government. Only last year a band of them had been robbing banks in Paris and had fought a regular battle with the police. “There are no more depraved people living!” exclaimed the father.
Lanny broke in: “Oh, surely, Robbie, she isn't like that. She's so gentle and kind, she's like a saint.”
Robbie turned upon the mother. “You see! That snake in the grass, imposing upon the credulity of a child!”
He couldn't blame Lanny, of course. He controlled his anger, and explained that these people were subtle and posed as being idealists, when in their hearts were hatred and jealousy; they poisoned the minds of the young and impressionable.
Beauty began to cry, so the father talked more quietly. “I have always left Lanny's upbringing to you, and I have no fault to find with what you've done, but this is one thing on which I have to put down my foot. The black sheep of your family — or perhaps I had better say the red sheep of your family — is certainly not going to corrupt our son.”
“But, Robbie,” sobbed the mother, “I hadn't the least idea that Jesse was going to call.”
“All right,” said Robbie. “Write him a note and tell him it's not to happen again and Lanny is to be let alone.”
But that caused more weeping. “After all, he's my brother, Robbie. And he was kind to us; he was the only one who didn't raise a row.”
“I've no quarrel with him, Beauty. All I want is for him to keep away from our son.”
Beauty wiped her eyes and her nose; she knew that she looked ugly when she wept and she hated ugliness above all things. “Listen, Robbie, try to be reasonable. Jesse hasn't been here for half a year, and the last time he came Lanny didn't even know it. It will probably be as long before he'll be moved to come again. Can't we just tell Lanny not to have anything to do with him? I'm sure this child isn't interested in him.”
“No, really, Robbie!” The boy hastened to support his mother. “If I'd had any idea that you objected, I'd have made some excuse and gone away.”
So the father was persuaded to leave it that way; the lad gave his promise that never again would he let his Uncle Jesse take him anywhere, and there would be no more slumming tours with anybody. The concern of his father, who was usually so easygoing, made an indelible impression on the boy. Robbie behaved as if his son had been exposed to leprosy or bubonic plague; he probed Lanny's mental symptoms, looking for some infected spot which might be cut out before it had time to spread. Just what had Jesse Blackless said, and what had that Pugliese woman said?
Some inner voice told Lanny not to mention the remark about graft in the munitions industry; but he quoted his uncle's explanation of why there had to be poor people — because there were rich people.
“There's a sample of their poison!” exclaimed the father, and set out to provide Lanny with the proper antidote. “The reason there are poor is because most people are shiftless and lazy and don't save their money; they spend it on drink, or they gamble it away, and so of course they suffer. Envy of the good fortune of others is one of the commonest of human failings, and agitators play upon it, they make a business of preaching discontent and inciting the poor to revolt. That is a very great social danger, which many people fail to realize.”
Robbie became a bit apologetic now for having lost his temper and scolded Lanny's mother in Lanny's presence. The reason was that it was his duty to protect a child's immature mind. Lanny, who adored his handsome and vigorous father, was grateful for this protection. It was a relief to him to be told what was true and thus be saved from confusion of mind. So in the end everything became all right again; storm clouds blew over, and tears were dried, and Beauty was beautiful as she was meant to be.