Пользователь - WORLD'S END

Afterward they had lunch in the garden, the visitors, the teachers, and the children. "Lohengrin" was pouring out this prodigality, and to Lanny the place seemed a sort of artists' heaven. The children, boys and girls of all ages, wore tunics of bright colors; they lived on vegetarian foods, but it didn't keep them from having bright cheeks and eyes, and hearts full of love for Isadora, and for the beauty they were helping to create. Lanny exclaimed: "Oh, I'd like to come here, Beauty! Do you suppose Isadora would take me?"

"Perhaps she would," said Beauty; and Mrs. Emily said she would ask her, if they meant it. Mrs. Emily had helped Isadora to become known, and the lovely white feet had danced more than once on the lawn under the chestnut trees at Les Forкts.

But suddenly Lanny thought, was he free just then to think about dancing? Didn't he have to stay with Beauty, and watch over her, and try to save poor Marcel from having his happiness ruined? Oh, this accursed sex problem!

Artists came to Bellevue, and sat upon a platform in the center of the hall and made sketches of the dancing children. At Meudon, not far away, was the studio of a famous sculptor, Auguste Rodin; a sturdy son of the people with a great spade beard, broad features, and ponderous form. He was an old man now, becoming feeble, but he could still make wonderful sketches. He sat near Lanny and, when the dancing was over, talked about the loveliness of it, and wished he could have had such models for all his work - models who lived, and moved, and brought harmony before the eyes in a thousand shifting forms. Lanny thought that this old man himself had been able to make marble and bronze live and move; he tried to say it, and the sculptor put his big hand on the boy's head, and told him to come to the studio some day and see the works which had not yet been given to the world.

Driving into Paris, the ladies talked about Rodin, who also was providing evidence about the love life! He was getting into- his dotage, and had fallen prey to an American woman, married to a Frenchman who bore one of the oldest and proudest names in history. "But that doesn't keep them from being bad characters," said Mrs. Emily. She told how this pair had preyed upon the old artist and got him to sign away much of his precious work.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" exclaimed Beauty Budd. "What pitiful creatures men are!" She meant it for Harry, of course; but Lanny heard it and agreed. People wished to take love as a source of pleasure, but it seemed to bring them torment. The primrose path had thorns in it, and as time passed these thorns became dry and hard and sharper than a serpent's tooth.

They came into Paris at the hour when the shops and factories were closing, and the streets swarming with people. The crowds did not seem to be hurrying as usual; they would form groups and stand talking together. The newsboys were shouting everywhere, and the headlines on the papers were big enough so that motorists could read without stopping. La Guerre! was the gist of them all. Austria had that day declared war upon Serbia! And what was Russia going to do? What would Germany do? And France? And England? People stared at one another, unable to grasp the awful thing'that was crashing upon the world.

11

C'est la Guerre

I

BEAUTIFUL flowers bloomed in the garden that was Europe. They spread wide petals to the sunshine, trusting the security of the warm and sheltered place. Over them fluttered butterflies, also of splendid hues and delicate structure, loving the sunlight, floating upon peace and stillness. But suddenly came a tempest, harsh and blind, tearing the fragile wings of the butterflies, hurling them against the branches» of trees or into the sodden ground; ripping the petals off the flowers, stripping the foliage, leaving bare wrecked limbs to mock the lovers of beauty. So it was with Lanny Budd during the next dreadful week, and so with all the persons he knew, and with countless millions of others, from Land's End to Vladivostok, from Archangel to the Cape of Good Hope. It was the worst week in the history of Europe - and there were many more to follow.

Lanny had been expecting his friend Kurt Meissner in Paris; but several days before had come a letter from Kurt, written on a Channel steamer, saying that his father had telegraphed him to return home at once, taking the first boat by way of the Hook of Holland. Kurt had been worried, thinking there must be illness in his family; but now Lanny understood what had happened - Herr Meissner had known what was coming. In London and Paris one heard many stories about Germans who had received such warnings, and had taken measures for their personal safety or their financial advantage. Here and there one had even passed on a discreet "tip" to an American friend.

Lanny and his mother came to Paris, and Robbie showed up there on the morning after Austria declared war. He wouldn't lack advance information, be sure! He said that a salesman of armaments wouldn't have to do any more traveling now; the governments would find him wherever he was. The thing had come which Robbie had said couldn't possibly come; but it didn't take him long to adjust himself to it. "All right, it's what Europe wants, let them have it." Budd's would continue to turn out products, and anybody could buy them who came with the cash. Somebody had been telling Robbie about Shaw's Major Barbara, so now he talked impressively about "the Creed of the Armorer."

It was good to have Robbie at hand in a time like this; self-possessed as ever, a firm rock of counsel, also a checkbook open to friends in trouble. He and Beauty and Lanny settled down to a conference; and presently Harry Murchison came into it - forcing himself in, by taking his problem to Robbie. They had met once before and were on friendly terms, Harry being the sort of fellow that Robbie approved.

"Mr. Budd," said he, "I don't know why you and Beauty parted, and I'm not interested; but I know you're still her friend, and she listens to you, and I wish you'd give her sensible advice. I want to marry her - right now - today - and take her out of this hell that's starting here. She can have a new life in America; I'll do most anything she asks, give her anything she can think of. As for Lanny, I'll take care of him, or you can - I like the boy, and we'll be the best of friends if he'll let me. Surely that's a fair offer!"

Robbie thought it was; and so the whole situation was forced into the open. Lanny talked to his father, not merely about Marcel, but about Baron Livens-Mazursky, and Dr. Bauer-Siemans, and the Hackaburys, and Isadora, and Anatole France, and all the rest; he had to make Robbie understand how he came to know so much about love, and why he was taking it upon himself to keep a French painter from losing his beautiful blond mistress. Robbie didn't have much use for either Frenchmen or painters, but he was very much for Lanny, and couldn't help being tickled by this odd situation, a sensitive, idealistic kid undertaking to make a hero out of his mother's lover - and seeming very likely to get away with it. It was clear that Beauty was still half in love with her painter; the other half in love with the idea of becoming a respectable American lady, wife of a man who could give her security and position. Which would she choose?

II

It was a time for showdowns. In the crash of kingdoms and empires, human blunders and failures shrank to smaller proportions. Beauty took her son into a room apart, and told him a story which so far she had kept from nearly everyone she knew. She couldn't look him in the eyes, and blushed intensely - her throat, her cheeks, her forehead. "Your father and I have never been married, Lanny. The story that we are divorced is one that I made up to protect you and me. I didn't want people to know that you are illegitimate, and make it a handicap to your life."