I
LANNY came home with the idea fixed in his head that he ought to go to school; he wanted to settle down to hard study and be disciplined and conscientious like those Germans. The idea somewhat alarmed his mother, and she asked, just what did he want to learn. Lanny presented a list: he wanted to understand what Kurt called philosophy, that is, what life was, and why it was, and how the Idea always preceded the Thing; second, he wanted to understand the long German words that he had heard, such as Erscheinungsphänomenologie and Minderwertigkeitscomplexe; third, he wanted to know how to calculate trajectories and the expansive forces of propellants, so as to understand Robbie when he was talking to the artillery experts; and, finally, he wanted to learn to multiply and divide numbers.
Beauty was puzzled; she didn't know any of these things herself, and wasn't sure if there was any, school in the neighborhood where they were taught. She pointed out that if Lanny went away to boarding school, he wouldn't be on hand for the visits of his father; also he would miss a great deal of travel, which was another kind of education, wasn't it? So finally it was decided that the way to solve the problem was, first, to buy a large dictionary and a twenty-volume encyclopedia; and, second, to get a tutor who understood arithmetic.
So it came about that Mr. Ridgley Elphinstone entered into Lanny Budd's young life. Mr. Elphinstone was an Oxford student whose health had weakened, and he was living en pension in the village. Beauty was introduced to him at a bridge party, and when the hostess mentioned that the young man was poor, Beauty had the bright idea to inquire if he could teach arithmetic. He answered sadly that he had forgotten all he had ever known, but doubtless he could brush up; that was the way of all tutors, he explained, they got advance information as to what was expected, and they brushed up. Mr. Elphinstone came and made an inventory of Lanny's disordered stock of knowledge, and told Beauty that it might be difficult to make an educated man of him, but since he was going to have money, why did it matter?
After that Mr. Elphinstone came every morning, unless Lanny was otherwise engaged. He was a thin person of melancholy aspect, with dark Byronic hair and eyes, and spent his spare time composing poetry which he never showed to anyone. Apart from his code as an English gentleman, he appeared to have only one conviction, which was that nothing was certain, and anyhow it made no difference. His method of instruction was most agreeable; he would tell Lanny anything he wanted to know, and if neither of them knew it, they would look it up in the encyclopedia. Incidentally, Mr. Elphinstone fell in love with Beauty, which was as she expected; being poor but proud he never said anything, which made the most pleasant arrangement possible.
So far, Lanny's pronunciation of his own tongue had been modeled upon that of his father, who was a Connecticut Yankee. But the Oxford accent is most impressive, and the boy now lived.in daily contact with it, so presently he was being heard to declare that he “had bean,” and that he knew “we-ah” he was going, he saw “cle-ahly” what was his “gaoal.” He would say that he “re-ahlized” that his education was “diff'rent,” but that it was “mod'n,” and he wanted it to be “thurrah.” He developed aristocratic sentiments, and when he discussed politics would say: “We must not shut ahr eyes to the fact that it is necess'ry for someone to commahnd.” If one of the boys invited him to play tennis he would reply: “Ah-i will luke and see the tah-eem.” When Robbie returned he “tuke” some amused “lukes” at his son, and informed him that the sound of “oo” as in the word “loot” came from the quite unfashionable North of England.
II
Among the guests at one of the tea parties was a Russian baron of the name of Livens-Mazursky. The friend who brought him said that he was rich and important, owned a newspaper in St. Petersburg, had diplomatic contacts, and would be a valuable person to Robbie — all that sort of thing. He was of striking appearance, large, with flourishing black whiskers, pale cheeks, and lips so red that you wondered if he did not stain them. His eyes were prominent and bright, and he talked with animation in whatever language the company preferred. He spent his money freely, so everybody liked him.
Baron Livens came to the house several times and seemed to take an interest in the handsome boy. Lanny was used to that, many people did it; also he was used to the ardent temperament of the Russians and thought he would be helping the American munitions industry by making friends with a brilliant man who had once been a cavalry officer, and who seemed like a character stepping out of With Fire and Sword.
One afternoon Lanny went with his mother to Cannes, and while she did some shopping he went to a kiosk and got a magazine, and sat down to read and wait for his mother in the lobby of one of the fashionable hotels. Baron Livens happened in, and sat beside him, and asked him what he was reading, chatted about magazines, and finally told Lanny that he had some wonderful reproductions of Russian paintings in his suite upstairs. So they went up in the lift, and the baron ushered Lanny into a showy drawing room, and got the prints, and they sat down at a table together to look at pictures.
Presently one of the man's arms was about Lanny, and that was all right; but then he bent down and kissed the boy on the cheek. All boys in those days had the experience of being kissed with whiskers, and didn't like it. When the action was repeated, Lanny shrank and said: “Please don't.” But the baron held on to him, and Lanny became alarmed; he looked, and discovered a half-crazy stare in the man's eyes. A panic seized the boy and he cried: “Let me go!”
Lanny had not forgotten what the Social-Democratic editor had told him about Graf Stubendorf; he had tried to imagine what he was being warned against, and now it flashed into his mind that this must be it! He struggled and started to scream, which frightened the man, so that he let go his hold, and Lanny sprang up and rushed to the door.
It was locked; and this discovery gave Lanny the wildest fright he had ever known. He shrieked at the top of his voice: “Help! Help! Let me out!” The baron tried to quiet him, but Lanny got a big upholstered chair between them, and yelled louder; until the man said: “Be quiet, you little fool, and then I'll open the door.” “All right, open it,” panted Lanny. When it was open he made the man step away from it, and then dashed out and down the stairs without waiting for the lift.
In the lobby he took a seat, pale and shivering; for a while he thought he was going to be nauseated. Then he saw the bewhiskered baron bringing the magazine which had been left behind. Lanny jumped up and kept backing away; he wouldn't let the Russian get near him. The man was agitated too, and tried to plead; it was all a misunderstanding, he had meant no harm, he had little boys of his own whom he loved, and Lanny reminded him of them.
Such was the situation when Beauty appeared. She saw that something had happened, and the baron tried to explain; the dear little boy had misunderstood him, it was a cruel accident, most embarrassing. Lanny wouldn't speak of it, he just wanted to get out of there. “Please, Beauty, please!” he said, so they went out to the street.
“Have you been hurt?” asked the frightened mother.
But Lanny said: “No, I got away from him.” He wouldn't talk about it on the street, and then he wouldn't talk in the car, because Pierre, the chauffeur, could hear them. “Let's go home,” he said, and sat holding his mother's hand as tightly as he could.
III
By the time they reached Bienvenu, Lanny had got over some or his agitation, and was wondering whether he could have been making a mistake. But when he told his mother about it she said, no, he had been in real danger; she would like to go and shoot that Russian beast. But she wouldn't tell the youngster what it was about; a kind of fog of embarrassment settled over them, and all Lanny got out of it was anxious monitions never to let any man touch him again, never to go anywhere with any man again — it appeared that he couldn't safely have anything to do with anybody except a few of his mother's intimates.
Beauty had to talk to somebody, and called in her friend Sophie, Baroness de la Tourette. Oh, yes, said that experienced woman of the world, everybody knew about Livens; but what could you do? Have him arrested? It would make a journalist's holiday, he would fight back and blacken you with scandals. Shoot him? Yes, but the French laws were rather strict; the jury would have to be made to weep, and lawyers who can do that charge a fortune. The thing to do was to make the child understand, so that it couldn't happen again.
“But what on earth can I say to him?” exclaimed Beauty.
“Do you mean you haven't given him a straight talk?” demanded her friend.
“I just can't bring myself to it, Sophie. He is so innocent —”
“Innocent, hell!” retorted Sophie Timmons, that henna blonde with the henna laugh; the daughter of a hardware manufacturer who was a piece of hardware herself. “He plays around with these peasant children — don't you suppose they watch the animals and talk about it?. If you heard them you would pass out.”
“Oh, my God!” lamented Beauty. “I wish there was no such thing as sex in the world!”
“Well, there's plenty of it on this 'Coast of Pleasure,' and your little one will soon be ready for his share. You'd better wake, up.”
“His father is the one who ought to tell him, Sophie.”
“All right then, send a cablegram, 'Robbie come at once and tell Lanny the facts of life.'” They both laughed, but it didn't solve the problem. “Couldn't the tutor do it?” suggested the baroness finally.
“I haven't the faintest notion what his ideas are.”
“Well, at the worst I should think they'd be better than Livens',” responded the other, dryly.
The Baroness de la Tourette of course told the story all over the place, and Baron Livens-Mazursky found himself cut off from a number of calling lists; he suddenly decided to spend the rest of the winter at Gapri, a place which was not so puritanical as Cannes. Lanny's mother repeated her warnings to the boy, with such solemnity that he began to acquire the psychology of a wild deer in the forest; he looked before he ventured into any dark places, and if he saw anyone, male or female, getting close to him he moved.
IV
But even the wild deer in the forest enjoys life, and Lanny couldn't be kept from wanting to talk to people and find out about them. Soon afterward came the Adventure of the Gigolo, which was the last straw, so Beauty declared. The story of Lanny's gigolo spread among the smart crowd up and down the Riviera, and every now and then someone would ask: “Well, Lanny, how's your gigolo getting along?” He knew they were making fun, but it didn't worry him, for his mind was firmly made up that his gigolo was really a very kind man, much more so than some of the persons who tried to win money from his mother at bridge.
It was another of those occasions when Beauty was having herself made more so. This time it was a ravishing evening gown of pale blue chiffon over cloth of silver, which was being “created” by M. Claire, the couturier in Nice, at a specially moderate price because of the advertising he would get. It meant long sessions of fitting in which Beauty got a bit dizzy, and Lanny preferred to sit out under the plane trees and watch the traffic go by, the fashionable people strolling, and the bonnes with the pretty children.
He sat on a bench, and along came a gentleman of thirty or so, wearing correct afternoon attire in the morning, and a neatly trimmed little black mustache and a cane with a ball of polished agate for a handle. He had an amiable expression, and perhaps recognized a similar one on the face of the boy. Certainly he could see that the boy was fashionably attired. It was now the height of the season, and the town was full of tall slender youths from England and America, wearing sports shirts, linen trousers, and tennis shoes or sandals.
The gentleman took a seat on the bench, and after a while stole a glance at the book in Lanny's lap. “J'ai lou cela” he remarked.
Which told Lanny right away that he was a countryman, a native of Provence. These people do not pronounce the è as do the French; the name of Lanny's town was not spoken in French fashion, or in Spanish, but “Jou-an.” Lanny answered in Provencal, and the stranger's face lighted up. “Oh, you are not a foreigner?” Lanny explained that he was born in Switzerland and had lived most of his life in “Jou-an.” The stranger said that he came from the mountain village of Charaze, where his parents were peasants.
That called for explanation; for the sons of peasants do not as a rule spend their mornings strolling under the plane trees of the Avenue de la Victoire, dressed in frock coat and striped trousers trimmed with black braid. M. Pinjon — that was his name — explained that he had risen in the world by becoming a professional dancer. Lanny said that he too was a dancer of a sort, and wished to learn all he could about that agreeable art. M. Pinjon said that what counted was that one had the spirit, the inner fire. Yes, assented Lanny; so few had that fire, which was the soul of every art. Kurt had said that, and Lanny remembered it and used it to excellent effect.
So you see the acquaintance started upon the very highest plane. Lanny was moved to tell about Hellerau, and the tall white temple loomed as a place of magic to which M. Pinjon might some day make a pilgrimage. Lanny described the technique of Eurythmics; a little bit more and he would have been giving a demonstration on the sidewalk of the avenue.
V
Out of the fervor of his nature as an artist and a son of the warm South, M. Pinjon told the story of his life. He was a child of a large family, and the little plot of earth in Charaze was too small to sustain them all. So he, the youngest, had fared forth to make his fortune in the world, and for a while had not found it easy. He had lived in a wretched lodging — there was a “cabbage patch” also in Nice, and much refuse was dumped into the streets, and the smells were painful to a countryman who was used to thyme and lavender on the hillsides.
M. Pinjon had become a waiter, a menial position in a small cafe; but he had saved every sou, and bought himself this costume, patterned carefully after those he had observed in the grand monde. At home he had been a skillful dancer of the farandole, and had soon begun a study of modern dancing, no simple task, since twenty-eight forms of the tango were now being danced on the Riviera, besides such American innovations as the “turkey trot” and the “bunny hug.”
Having cultivated his ten talents, M. Pinjon had obtained an opening in one of the casinos. He was what was called, somewhat unkindly, a “gigolo.” True, there were evil men in the business, ready to take advantage of opportunities; but M. Pinjon was a serious person, a French peasant at heart, and his purpose in life was to save up a sufficiency of livres to purchase a bit of land which he had picked out near his ancestral home and there to live as his forefathers had done, cultivating the olive and the vine and saying prayers against the return of the Saracens.
Ladies came in great numbers to the casino; ladies who were lonely, mostly because they were middle-aged, and the men, whether old or young, preferred to dance with young partners. However, middle-aged ladies were reluctant to bid farewell to their youth, and to the enjoyment which we all crave. M. Pinjon spoke quite feelingly and at the same time instructively about the problem of the middle-aged lady. Why should she not dance — having nothing else to do? Since the men did not invite her, she was compelled to pay for partners, and it was in this way that M. Pinjon gained a modest living. He danced with strange ladies in a dignified and respectful way, and if they wished to be taught he helped them to improve their style.
He seemed anxious that this polite and intelligent boy should agree with him that this was a proper thing to do; and Lanny did agree with him. M. Pinjon came back to the subject of Dalcroze, and asked if there was a book about it. Lanny gave him the name of a book and he wrote it down. The boy was moved to add: “If you ever come to Juan, and will call at our home, I'll be glad to show you as much of it as I can.” The dancer wrote down Lanny's address, and said he would surely not fail; he played the piccolo flute, and would bring it and render old Provengal tunes and Lanny would dance them.
At this point came Beauty, tired and a little cross after the ordeal of “fitting.” Lanny introduced her to his new friend, and of course Beauty had to be polite, but at the same time most reserved, because she could perceive social subtleties which a boy couldn't, and this wasn't the first time that Lanny's habit of picking up strange persons had caused embarrassment. When they got into the car and were driving home, Lanny told her about his new friend, and — well, of course Beauty couldn't be angry with the child, but, oh, dear, oh, dear — she had to sink back into the cushions of the car and laugh. She thought how Sophie would laugh, and how Margy would laugh — that was Lady Eversham-Watson. And they did, of course; everybody did, except Lanny.
The worst of it was there was no way to keep the man from calling. The mother had to explain carefully to Lanny that there are certain social differences that just can't be overlooked. “You'll of course have to be polite to this poor fellow, but you mustn't ask him to call again, nor promise to go and see him dance at the casino. Above all, I won't meet him again.”
M. Pinjon rode all the way from Nice in an autobus, his first free day. He brought his piccolo, and they sat out on the terrace, and he played shrill little tunes, “Magali,” and the “Marche des Rois,” and Lanny danced them, and the son of the warm South became inspired, and played faster and more gaily, and danced while he played. Beauty, who happened to be at home, peered through the blinds of a window now and then, and watched the dapper little man with the neat black mustache capering with such agility; she had to admit that it was a touching scene — out of the childhood of the world, as it were, before social classes came into being.
Afterward Rosine brought wine and cake. M. Pinjon was treated with every courtesy — except that he did not again see the face of the loveliest of grass widows. The Provencal chansons which tell of troubadours singing in castles and carrying away princesses somehow did not fit the circumstances of the year 1914 on the Céte d'Azur.
VI
After that episode Beauty Budd decided that she could no longer leave her child in ignorance of the facts of life. She sought out her friend Sophie, who had a new suggestion. There was in Nice an Austrian-Jewish physician of the name of Bauer-Siemans, practitioner of a method known as psychoanalysis, just now sweeping Europe and America. Ladies in the highest social circles discovered that they had inferiority complexes — that was the German jawbreaker Minderwertigkeitscomplexe, called “the Minkos” for short. Ladies and gentlemen talked quite blandly about their Oedipus fixations and their anal-erotic impulses; it was horrible, but at the same time fascinating. The thing that carried ladies off their feet was the fact that for ten dollars an hour you could employ a cultured and intelligent gentleman to hear you talk about yourself. It cost many times that to give a dinner party — and then you discovered that the gentlemen wanted to talk about themselves!
“I don't know how much I believe of that stuff,” said the Baroness de la Tourette; “but at least the man knows the facts and won't mind talking about them.”
“But will he want to bother with a child, Sophie?”
“Hand him an envelope with a hundred-franc note in it, and let nature do the rest,” said the practical-minded baroness.
So Mrs. Budd telephoned and asked for an hour or two of the valuable time of Dr. Bauer-Siemans, and took Lanny with her and left him in the outer office while she told about the baron, and then the gigolo.
The psychoanalyst was a learned-looking gentleman having a high forehead topped with black wavy hair, and gold pince-nez which he took off now and then and used in making gestures. He spoke English with a not too heavy accent. “But why don't you talk to the boy yourself, Mrs. Budd?” he demanded.
More blood mounted to Beauty's already well-suffused cheeks. “I just can't, Doctor. I've tried, but I can't speak the words.”
“You are an American?” he inquired.
“I am the daughter of a Baptist minister in New England.”
“Ah, I see. Puritanism!” Dr. Bauer-Siemans said it as if it were “poliomyelitis” or “Addison's disease.”
“It seems to be ingrained,” said Beauty, lowering her lovely blue eyes.
“The purpose of psychoanalysis is to bring such repressions to the surface of consciousness, Mrs. Budd. So we get rid of them and acquire normal attitudes.”
“What I want is for you to talk to Lanny,” said the mother, hastily. “I would like you to consider it a professional matter, please.” She handed over a scented envelope, not sealed but with the flap tucked in.
The doctor smiled. “We don't usually receive payment in advance,” he said, and laid the envelope on the desk. “Leave the little fellow with me for an hour or so, and I'll tell him what he needs to know.” So Beauty got up and went out; meantime the doctor glanced into the envelope, and saw that Lanny was entitled to a full dose of the facts of life.
VII
The boy found himself seated in a chair facing the desk of this strange professional gentleman. When he heard what he was there for, the blood began to climb into his cheeks; for Lanny, too, was a little Puritan, far from the home of his forefathers.
However, it wasn't really so bad; for the Baroness de la Tourette had been right. Lanny had not failed to see the animals, and the peasant boys had talked in the crudest language. His mind was a queer jumble of truth and nonsense, most of the latter supplied by his own speculations. The peasant boys had told him that men and women behaved like that also, but Lanny hadn't been able to believe it; when the doctor asked why not, he said: “It didn't seem dignified.” The other smiled and replied: “We do many things which do not seem dignified, but we have to take nature as we find it.”
The doctor's explanations were not by means of the bees and the flowers, but with the help of a medical book full of pictures. After Lanny had got over the first shock he found this absorbingly interesting; here were the things he had been wondering about, and someone who would give him straight answers. It was impossible for Lanny to imagine such desires or behavior on his own part, but the doctor said that he would very soon be coming to that period of life. He would find the time of love one of happiness, but also of danger and strain; there arose problems of two different natures, man's and woman's, learning to adjust themselves each to the other, and they needed all the knowledge that was to be had.
All this was sensible, and something which every boy ought to have; Lanny said so, and pleased the learned-looking doctor, who gave him the full course for which the mother had paid, and even a little extra. He took up a subject which had a great effect upon the future of both mother and son. “I understand that your mother is divorced,” he remarked. “There are many problems for children of such a family.”
“I suppose so,” said Lanny innocently — for he was not aware of any problems in his own family.
“Understand, I'm not going to pry into your affairs; but if you choose to tell me things that will help me to guide you, it will be under the seal of confidence.”
“Yes, sir,” said Lanny. “Thank you very much.”
“When families break up, sooner or later one party or the other remarries, or perhaps both do; so the child becomes a stepchild, which means adjustments that are far from easy.”
“My father has remarried and has a family in Connecticut; but I have never been there.”
“Possibly your father foresees difficulties. How long have your mother and father been divorced?”
“It was before I can remember. Ten years, I guess.”
“Well, let me tell you things out of my experience. Your mother is a beautiful woman, and doubtless many men have wished to marry her. Perhaps she has refused because she doesn't want to make you unhappy. Has she ever talked to you about such matters?”
“No, sir.”
“You have seen men in the company of your mother, of course.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You haven't liked it, perhaps?”
Lanny began to be disturbed. “I–I suppose I haven't liked it if they were with her too much,” he admitted.
Dr. Bauer-Siemans smiled, and told him that a psychoanalyst talked to hundreds of men and women, and they all had patterns of behavior which one learned to recognize. “Often they are ashamed of these,” he said, “and try to deny them, and we have to drag the truth out of them — for their own good, of course, since the first step toward rational behavior is to know our own selves. You understand what I am saying?”
“I think so, Doctor.”
“Then face this question in your own heart.” The doctor had his gold pince-nez in his hand, and used them as if to pin Lanny down. “Would you be jealous if your mother were to love some man?”
“Yes, sir — I'm afraid maybe I would.”
“But ask yourself this: when the time comes that you fall in love with some woman — as you will before many years are past — will you expect your mother to be jealous of that woman?”
“Would she?” asked the boy, surprised.
“She may have a strong impulse to do it, and it will mean a moral struggle to put her son's welfare ahead of her own. My point is that you may have to face such a struggle — to put your mother's welfare ahead of yours. Do you think you could do it?”
“I suppose I could, if it was the right sort of man.”
“Of course, if your mother fell in love with a worthless man, for example a drunkard, you would urge her against it, as any of her friends would. But you must face the fact that your mother is more apt to know what sort of man can make her happy than her son is.”
“Yes, sir, I suppose so,” admitted the son.
“Understand again, I know nothing about your mother's affairs. I am just discussing ordinary human behavior. The most likely situation is that your mother has a lover and is keeping it a secret from you because she thinks it would shock you.”
The blood began a violent surge into Lanny's throat and cheeks. “Oh, no, sir! I don't think that can be!”
Aiming his gold pince-nez at Lanny's face, the other went on relentlessly. “It would be a wholly unnatural thing for a young woman like your mother to go for ten years without a love life. It wouldn't be good for her health, and still less for her happiness. It is far more likely that she has tried to find some man who can make her happy. So long as you were a little boy, it would be possible for her to keep this hidden from you. But from now on it will not be so easy. Sooner or later you may discover signs that your mother is in love with some man. When that happens, you have to know your duty, which is not to stand in her way, or to humiliate or embarrass her, but to say frankly and sensibly: 'Of course, I want you to be happy; I accept the situation, and will make myself agreeable to the man of your choice.' Will you remember that?”
“Yes, sir,” said Lanny. But his voice was rather shaky.
VIII
Beauty had been wandering around in the shops, in a state of mind as if Lanny were having his tonsils out. A great relief to find him whole and sound, not blushing or crying or doing anything to embarrass her. “Dr. Bauer-Siemans is a well-informed man,” he said with dignity. He was.going to take it like that, an affair between men; his mother need not concern herself with it any further.
“Home, Pierre,” said Beauty; and on the way they were silent.
Something was going on in Lanny's mind, a quite extraordinary procèss. There used to be a popular kind of puzzle, a picture in which a cat was hidden, a large cat filling a good part of the picture in such a way that you had a hard time to find it. But when once you had found it, it stood out so you could hardly see anything else; you couldn't imagine how you had ever looked at that picture without seeing the cat.
So now with Lanny Budd; he was looking at a picture, tracing one line and then another; until suddenly — there was a large cat grinning at him!
Farther out on the peninsula of Antibes, a mile or so from the Budd home, lived a young French painter, Marcel Detaze. He was several years younger than Beauty, a well-built, active man with a fair mustache and hair soft and fine, so that the wind blew it every way; he had grave features and dark melancholy eyes, in striking contrast with his hair. He lived in a cottage, having a peasant woman in now and then to cook him a meal and clean up. He painted the seascapes of that varied coast, loving the waves that lifted themselves in great green masses and crashed into white foam on the rocks; he painted them well, but his work wasn't known, and like so many young painters he had a problem to find room for all his canvases. Now and then he sold one, but most were stored in a shed, against the day when collectors would come bidding.
Beauty thought a great deal of Marcel's work, and had bought several specimens and hung them where her friends would see them. She watched his progress closely, and often when she came home from a walk would say: “I stopped at Marcel's; he's improving all the time.” Or she would say: “I am going over to Marcel's; some of the others are coming to tea.” There were half a dozen painters who had their studios within walking distance, and they would stop in and make comments on one another's work. It had never struck Lanny as strange that Beauty would go to meet a painter, instead of inviting him to her home to tea, as she did other men.
Many circumstances like that Lanny had never noticed, because he was a little boy, and the relationships of men and women were not prominent in his thoughts. But Dr. Bauer-Siemans had put the picture in front of him and told him to look for the cat; and there it was!
Marcel Detaze was Beauty's lover! She went over there to be with him, and she made up little tales because she wanted to keep the secret from Lanny. That was why the painter came so rarely to the house, and then only when there was other company; that was why he didn't come when Robbie was there, and why he had so little to do with Lanny — fearing perhaps to be drawn into intimacy and so betray something. Or perhaps he didn't like Lanny, because he thought that Lanny stood between Beauty and himself!
If the boy had found out this secret without warning it would have given him a painful shock. But now the learned doctor had told him how to take it — and he would have to obey. But not without a struggle! Lanny wanted his mother to himself; he had to bite his lip and resolve heroically that he would not hate that young Frenchman with the worn corduroy trousers and little blue cap. He painted the sea, but he didn't know how to swim, and like most French people on the Riviera he seemed to have the idea it would kill him to get caught out in the rain!
Well, the doctor had said that Beauty was to select her own lover, with no help from her son. So Lanny forced himself to admit that the painter was good-looking. Perhaps he had attracted Beauty because he was so different from her; he appeared as if nursing a secret sorrow. Lanny, having read a few romances, imagined the young painter in love with some lady of high degree in Paris — he had come from there — and Beauty taking pity on him and healing his broken heart. It would be like Lanny's mother to wish to heal some broken heart!
Another part of the “cat” was Beauty's relations with other men. There had been a stream of them through her life, ever since Lanny could remember. Many were rich, and some were prominent; some had come as customers of Robbie — officials, army officers, and so on — and had remained as friends. They would appear in elaborate uniforms or evening dress, and take Beauty to balls and parties; they would bring her expensive gifts which she would gently refuse to accept. They would gaze at her with adoration — this was something which Lanny had been aware of, because Beauty and her women friends made so many jokes about it.
For the first time Lanny understood a remark which he had heard his mother make; she would not “pay the price.” She might have been rich, she might have had a title and lived in a palace and sailed about in a yacht like her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hackabury; but she preferred to be true to her painter. Lanny decided that this was a truly romantic situation. Marcel was too poor to marry her; or perhaps they thought Robbie wouldn't like it. The boy suddenly realized that it was exciting to have such a beautiful mother and to share the secrets- of her heart.
IX
The two, returning from the visit to the doctor, came to their home, and Lanny followed Beauty into her room. She sat down, and he went and knelt by her, and put his head against her and his arms around her waist. That way he couldn't see her face, nor she his, and it would be less embarrassing. “Beauty,” he whispered, “I want to tell you something.”
“Yes, dear?”
“I know about Marcel.”
He felt her give a gasp. “Lanny — how” — and then: “That doctor?” “He doesn't know — but I guessed it. I want to tell you, it's all right with me.”
There was a pause; then to his astonishment, Beauty put her face in her hands and burst into tears. She sobbed and sobbed, and only after some time managed to blurt out: “Oh, Lanny, I was so afraid! I thought you'd hate me!”
“But why should I?” asked the boy. “We are going to understand each other, always — and be happy.”