Пользователь - WORLD'S END

VIII

Doubtless things like that have happened in the Isles of Greece on many occasions, both ancient and modern; but none of these people had ever seen it, and they found it more exciting than looking at ruins or buying picture post cards of the Parthenon. The ladies gathered in poor Edna's cabin, and did what they could to console her, telling her that she had got rid of a great burden, and ought to be thankful. Ceddie Fashynge and Eddie Patterson went out and found Captain Andrew Fontenoy Fitz-Laing bracing himself with a few drinks in a cafe, and brought him back to the Bluebird.

When they had time to think matters over, they realized that it wasn't so bad; they had got rid of a dreadful bore, who in a crisis had shown himself a ruffian as well. Edna and Fitzy would no longer have to hide and cower. The latter, being a gentleman, would of course offer to marry her; but unfortunately he had nothing but his army pay, and couldn't keep a wife on that. Perhaps the soapman would make a settlement; anyhow, if he stuck by his word and left her the yacht, it would make a tidy nest egg.

The question was, what should they do next? They had been having such a jolly time, and it would be a shame to end it. Fortunately there was a person on board who could afford to keep the cruise going, and that was Eversham-Watson - or rather, his wife. Prompted by her, he said he would see them back to Cowes, which they had chosen as the place for the ending of their cruise. "The honor of England is at stake," said his lordship; his bright and chir-rupy little American wife had told him that, and he said it - solemnly and heavily, so that it sounded like a political speech instead of a joke.

Everybody wanted to get away from the Piraeus, before the madman from Indiana changed his mind and came back and turned them out. Edna gave the order to put to sea and she moved into Fitzy's cabin - it was necessary, really, since the door of her own was split to pieces and the carpenter had to make a new one. There were now three pairs of happy lovers on the yacht, to say nothing of one married couple who had learned to get along reasonably well. There was no longer anything to be concealed, and nobody to embarrass anybody else.

Lanny had a cabin to himself now, and if he missed his elderly friend, he did not tell anyone. He was left to speculate by himself about the strange scene he had witnessed; for nobody on board seemed to want to talk to him about it. Despite his having acquired a complete supply of the facts of life, his mother was greatly embarrassed, and considered that Mr. Hackabury had committed an outrage in allowing a child to witness such a scandal. All Beauty said was that the soap manufacturer had shown himself a crude and boorish person; "one of those men who think they can buy a woman's heart and hold it like a chattel."

All the party seemed to sympathize with Edna, except Marcel Detaze. From remarks he made to Beauty, Lanny gathered that he had his own ideas; but he didn't explain them to Lanny, and the boy was shrewd enough to realize that he must never under any circumstances come between Marcel and his mother, and had better not even know if there was any difference between them.

The Bluebird steamed south to Crete and then to the coast of Africa. The weather was hot, the sea blue and still, no one seasick, and no cloud in anyone's sky. They had hundreds of records for the phonograph, and played American ragtime and danced under the awnings which covered the after part of the deck. When they came to Tunis, and the ruins of what had been Carthage, they were in the midst of a long siege of poker; but the yacht stopped to get fresh fruits and vegetables, so Marcel and Lanny went ashore, and saw strange dark men wearing white hoods, and women going about completely veiled, with eyes black as sloes peering out seductively. They saw another sunset over broken shafts of marble, and Marcel told about Hannibal who had driven the elephants across the Alps, and Cato who had said every day all his life that Carthage must be destroyed. Lanny hadn't known that ancient history was so interesting, and went looking for a bookstore in Tunis, something hard to find.

Then Algiers, and they all went ashore and paid strange musicians and dancers to entertain them. They hired camels and rode into the interior, and saw date-palms growing, and poked into native houses, and Marcel sat for hours making sketches which he would use by and by. Lanny stuck to him, asking questions and learning about lines and shadows. The boy had now decided that he liked painting best of all the arts; for dancing was being ruined, nobody cared for anything but hugging each other and moving around in a slow kind of stupefied stagger.

But painting was something you could do by yourself. Lanny dreamed of some day achieving what Marcel had given up in despair - to convey, on canvas, that sense of melancholy which came over them, watching a sunset behind the ruins of old civilizations, and thinking about the men who had lived in those days and tried to make the world more beautiful. You wanted to call to those men to come back. You couldn't bear to know that they would never hear you; that they were gone, and all their dreams, their music and dancing, their temples and the gods who had dwelt in them! Some day you also would be gone, and other men would stand and call to you, and you, too, would not hear.

8

This Realm 9 This England

I

THE harbor of Cowes lies on the sheltered side of the Isle of Wight, and is the headquarters of the Royal Yacht Squadron and scene of the great regatta every summer. Here came the Bluebird at the beginning of May, in time for the pleasant weather and the opening of the London "season."

The gay company broke up. Edna Hackabury received a communication from a firm of solicitors representing her husband, and went up to the city to learn her fate. Beauty Budd was going to visit the Eversham-Watsons at their town house. Marcel Detaze was returning to his studio on the Cap d'Antibes, to put upon canvas his memories of Africa and Greece. The plan had been for Lanny to return with him; but here was a letter from Eric Vivian Pomeroy-Nielson, to whom Lanny had written from Athens. Rick begged: "Oh, please don't go away without seeing me! I'll come to town to meet you, and we'll go to the opera and the Russian ballet. Pretty soon school will be over,' and you can come to the country with me. Kurt Meissner is coming, and we'll have a grand time."

Kurt wrote from his school. He had worked hard and won prizes, and his father had promised him a reward. He had an uncle who was an official in a rubber company and had business in London, and was willing to take him along, to see the Russian ballet, and to hear the symphony orchestra and the opera, and to learn all he could about English music. So of course Lanny began begging to stay, and Lady Eversham-Watson said: "Why not? The dear little fellow can enjoy himself at our country place as long as he pleases, and if he wants to come to town, there will be someone to bring him."

If you have ever drunk Kentucky Bourbon, you have probably contributed to the fortune of Margy Petries; if you have ever read a magazine in the English language, you have surely not escaped the self-praises of "Petries' Peerless." Lord Eversham-Watson had met the creator of this beverage at one of the racing meets, and had been invited to come to the bluegrass country and see how they raised horses. He had come, and seen, and conquered, or so he had thought; but that was because he didn't know Kentucky girls. A4argy was one of those talkative little women who make you think they are shallow, but underneath have a sleepless determination to have their own way. His lordship - "Bumbles" to his friends - was heavy and slow, and liked to be comfortable; Margy was his second wife, and all he demanded was that she shouldn't go too far with other men. She had paid his debts, and he let her spend the rest of her father's money for whatever she fancied.