Пользователь - WORLD'S END

"I asked him that. He told me no."

"Well, I'll see if Lanny can find him."

"But why, Beauty? Isn't it better not to know, under the circumstances?"

"Then you wouldn't want to give him up?" inquired the devious one.

"Surely not - unless I knew he had committed some serious crime. The war is over, so far as I am concerned, and I've not the least interest in getting anybody shot. Let the Sыretй find him if they can."

"Are you satisfied that they believed your story, Emily?"

"It hadn't occurred to me that they wouldn't," was the great lady's reply. She was a most dignified person, and did not have to assume this role. "Apparently they knew all about me, and they talked as if they were gentlemen. They are high officials, I am sure."

"Of course they'd find out how to approach you, Emily. But they probably don't tell anybody all they know, and they might take it for granted that you wouldn't either."

"What on earth are you driving at, Beauty?"

"Well, Lanny keeps telling me how the French are always calling the Crillon staff 'pro-German'; and if there should be German agents in Paris trying to make propaganda on behalf of lifting the blockade, wouldn't it please the French to be able to tie them up with us?"

"What a witch you are!" exclaimed her friend. "You look so innocent and trusting and then you talk like a Sherlock Holmes!"

"Well, Lanny told me the other day that since I have no money I have to develop brains."

"I wonder what Lanny is thinking about me!" reflected the salonniиre ; and in their laughter Lanny's mother found a chance to hide the nervous tension under which she was laboring.

II

Beauty declined to have lunch with her friend, saying that she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't dress. As soon as the visitor had departed, she called the Crillon, and said: "Come at once, Lanny. Tell the professor your mother is ill."

The youth had no trouble in guessing what that meant. He made the necessary excuses and reached the hotel as quickly as a taxi could bring him. He found his mother weeping uncontrolledly, and he guessed the worst, and was both relieved and puzzled when he learned that the Sыretй hadn't yet got hold of Kurt, so far as Beauty knew. "Certainly they didn't have him last night," he argued. "And he may be out of the country after all."

"I just know he isn't, Lanny! Something tells me!" Beauty sobbed on; her son hadn't seen her in such a state of distress since the days when she was struggling with Marcel, first to keep him alive, and then to keep him from plunging back into the furnace of war.

Suddenly she looked up, and the youth saw a frightened look in her eyes. "Lanny, I must tell you the truth! You must manage to forgive me!"

"What do you mean, Beauty?"

"Kurt and I are lovers."

Those were the most startling words that Lanny Budd had heard spoken up to that moment of his life. His jaw fell, and all he could think of to say was: "For God's sake!"

"I know you'll be shocked," the mother rushed on. "But I've been so lonely, so distraite since Marcel died. I've tried to tell myself that my baby was enough, but it isn't so, Lanny. I'm just not made to live alone."

"I know, Beauty "

"And Kurt is in the same state. He's lost his wife and baby, he's lost his war, and his home - the Poles are going to have it, and he says he'll never go back to be ruled by them. Don't you see how it is with us?"

"Yes, dear, of course "

"And did you think that Kurt and I could be shut up here in three rooms, and not talk about our hearts, or think about consoling each other?"

"No, I must admit - "

"Oh, Lanny, you were such a darling about Marcel - now you must manage to be it again! Kurt is the best friend you have, or he will be if you'll let him. I know what you think - everybody will say it - that I'm old enough to be his mother; but you've always said that Kurt was older than his years, and you know that I'm much too young for mine. Kurt is twenty-two, and I'm only just thirty-seven - that's the honest truth, dear, I don't have to fib about it."

Lanny couldn't keep from laughing, seeing this good sou! desperately defending herself against all the gossips she had ever known. And taking a year or so from her own age and adding it to Kurt's!

"It's all right, dear. I was a little taken aback at first."

"You don't have to feel that you've lost either your mother or your friend, Lanny. We will both be to you just what we were before, if you will forgive us and let us."

"Yes, Beauty, of course."

"You mustn't think that Kurt seduced me, Lanny!"

The youth discovered himself laughing even more heartily. "Bless your dear heart! I'd be a lot more apt to think that you seduced Kurt!"

"Don't make fun of me, Lanny - it's deadly serious to both of us. You must understand what a gap there's been in my life ever since your father left me - or since I made him leave me. You'll never know what it cost me."

"I've tried to guess it many times," said the youth, and put his arm about her. "Cheer up, old dear, it's perfectly all right. Come to think of it, it's a brilliant idea, and I'm ashamed of my stupidity that I didn't think of it. Are you two going to marry?"

"Oh, that would be ridiculous, Lanny! What would people say? I'd be robbing the cradle!"

"Does Kurt want to marry you?"

"He thinks it's a matter of honor. He thinks you'll expect it. But tell him that's out of the question. Some day soon I'll be an old woman, and then I'd be ashamed of myself, to be a drag on his life. But I can make him happy now, Lanny. He's been coming here nearly every day, and we've both been embarrassed to tell you."

"Well, I don't think this was a very good time for you to turn into a prude," said the youth, severely. "But anyhow, that's done, and the question is how we're going to get you two sinners out of the country."

III

Beauty was like a person in a nightmare in which one is possessed by an agonizing sense of helplessness. She had no way to reach Kurt; he had given no address; he was under pledge, so he told her. He would come again - but when? And would he find police agents waiting for him in the hotel? Lanny must go downstairs and see if any suspicious-looking men were sitting in the lobby. Of course there are often men sitting in hotel lobbies, and how are you to say whether they look suspicious? Are police agents chosen because they look like police agents, or because they don't?

Beauty had to have help; and who was there but her son? She was terrified at the thought of involving him. Not on account of the Crillon - she didn't care a sou for them, she said, let them look out for themselves! But if the police were to take Lanny with Kurt? If he were to be punished for her guilty love - so she persisted in regarding it, being a woman who had been brought up respectably, a preacher's daughter, knowing the better even while she followed the worse!

Somebody must stay in the room, to be there when Kurt came, to warn him and hide him until night. Then they must get him out of Paris, and the safest way seemed to be by car. Beauty would go out and buy one, hers having been commandeered in the spring of the previous year. She supposed it would now be possible to get one if you had the price. Gasoline was still rationed, but that too could be arranged with money. She had only a little in the bank, she always did; but Lanny had a supply, and could draw on his father's account in an emergency. He offered to go out and attend to these matters; but the mother's terror took a leap - the police might trace all this, and Lanny would be guilty of helping a spy! No, let him wait here; she would run the errands.

Where would they go, he asked, and when she didn't know, he suggested Spain. If you went to Switzerland you were traveling toward Germany, and the authorities would be on the alert; but Spain was a neutral country, a Latin country, and a natural place for a rich American lady to be motoring with a lover. Or had it better be a chauffeur? They discussed the problem. A lover would appeal to Latin gallantry, but probably a chauffeur in uniform would be passed by the guard at the border with fewer questions.