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The usual round of pleasure trips began. They motored to Maine, and then to the

Adirondacks. So many people wanted to see them; Irma's gay and bright young old friends.

They had got used to her husband's eccentricities, and if he wanted to pound the piano while they

played bridge, all right, they would shut the doors between. He didn't talk so "Pink" as he had,

so they decided that he was getting sensible. They played games, they motored and sailed and

swam, they flirted a bit, and some couples quarreled, some traded partners as in one of the

old-fashioned square dances. But they all agreed in letting the older people do the worrying

and the carrying of burdens. "I should worry," —meaning that I won't—and "Let George do it,"

—so ran the formulas. To have plenty of money was the indispensable virtue, and to have to go

to work the one unthinkable calamity. "Oh, Lanny," said Irma, after a visit where an ultra-

smart playwright had entertained them with brilliant conversation—"Oh, Lanny, don't you

think you could get along over here at least part of the time?"

She wanted to add: "Now that you're being more sensible." She didn't really think he had

changed his political convictions, but she found it so much pleasanter when he withheld

them, and if he would go on doing this long enough it might become a habit. When they passed

through New York he didn't visit the Rand School of Social Science, or any of those summer

camps where noisy and mostly Jewish working people swarmed as thick as bees in a hive. He

was afraid these "comrades" might have learned what had been published about him in the Nazi

papers; also that Nazi agents in New York might report him to Göring. He stayed with his wife,

and she did her best to make herself everything that a woman could be to a man.

It worked for nearly a month; until one morning in Shore Acres, just as they were getting

ready for a motor-trip to a "camp" in the Thousand Islands, Lanny was called to the telephone to

receive a cablegram from Cannes, signed Hansi, and reading: "Unsigned unidentifiable letter

postmarked Berlin text Freddi ist in Dachau."

III

Their things were packed and stowed in the car, and the car was waiting in front of the mansion.

Irma was putting the last dab of powder on her nose, and Lanny stood in front of her with a

frown of thought upon his face: "Darling, I don't see how I can possibly take this drive."

She knew him well, after four years of wifehood, and tried not to show her disappointment.

"Just what do you want to do?"

"I want to think about how to help Freddi."

"Do you suppose that letter is from Hugo?"

"I had a clear understanding with him that he was to sign the name Boecklin. I think the

letter must be from one of Freddi's comrades, some one who has learned that we helped

Johannes. Or perhaps some one who has got out of Dachau."

"You don't think it might be a hoax?"

"Who would waste a stamp to play such a trick upon us?"

She couldn't think of any answer. "You're still convinced that Freddi is Göring's prisoner?"

"Certainly, if he's in the concentration camp, Göring knows he's there, and he knew it when

he had Furtwaengler tell me that he couldn't find him. He had him sent a long way from

Berlin, so as to make it harder for us to find out."

"Do you think you can get him away from Göring if Göring doesn't want to let him go?"

"What I think is, there may be a thousand things to think of before we can be sure of the best

course of action."

"It's an awfully nasty job to take on, Lanny."

"I know, darling—but what else can we do? We can't go and enjoy ourselves, play around, and

refuse to think about our friend. Dachau is a place of horror—I doubt if there's any so dreadful

in the world today, unless it's some other of the Nazi camps. It's an old dilapidated barracks,

utterly unfit for habitation, and they've got two or three thousand men jammed in there.

They're not just holding them prisoners—they're doing what Göring told me with his own

mouth, applying modern science to destroying them, body, mind, and soul. They're the best

brains and the finest spirits in Germany, and they're going to be so broken that they can

never do anything against the Nazi regime."

"You really believe that, Lanny?"

"I am as certain of it as I am of anything in human affairs. I've been studying Hitler and his

movement for twelve years, and I really do know something about it."

"There's such an awful lot of lying, Lanny. People go into politics, and they hate their

enemies, and exaggerate and invent things."

"I didn't invent Mein Kampf, nor the Brownshirts, nor the murders they are committing

night after night. They break into people's homes and stab them or shoot them in their beds,

before the eyes of their wives and children; or they drag them off to their barracks and beat

them insensible."

"I've heard those stories until I've been made sick. But there are just as many violent men of

the other side, and there have been provocations over the years. The Reds did the same thing

in Russia, and they tried to do it in Germany—"

"It's not only the Communists who are being tortured, darling; it's pacifists and liberals, even

church people; it's gentle idealists, like Freddi—and surely you know that Freddi wouldn't have

harmed any living creature."

IV

Irma had to put down her powder-puff, but was still sitting on the stool in front of her

dressing-table. She had many things that she had put off saying for a long time; and now,

apparently, was the time to get them off her mind. She began: "You might as well take the

time to understand me, Lanny. If you intend to plunge into a thing like this, you ought to

know how your wife feels about it."

"Of course, dear," he answered, gently. He could pretty well guess what was coming.

"Sit down." And when he obeyed she turned to face him. "Freddi's an idealist, and you're

an idealist. It's a word you're fond of, a very nice word, and you're both lovely fellows, and you

wouldn't hurt anybody or anything on earth. You believe what you want to believe about the

world—which is that other people are like you, good and kind and unselfish—idealists, in short.

But they're not that; they're full of jealousy and hatred and greed and longing for revenge. They

want to overthrow the people who own property, and punish them for the crime of having

had life too easy. That's what's in their hearts, and they're looking for chances to carry out

their schemes, and when they come on you idealists, they say: 'Here's my meat!' They get

round you and play you for suckers, they take your money to build what they call their

'movement.' You serve them by helping to undermine and destroy what you call capitalism.

They call you comrades for as long as they can use you, but the first day you dared to stand

in their way or interfere with their plans, they'd turn on you like wolves. Don't you know

that's true, Lanny?"

"It's true of many, I've no doubt."

"It would be true of every last one, when it came to a show down. You're their 'front,' their

stalking horse. You tell me what you heard from Göring's mouth—and I tell you what I've

heard from Uncle Jesse's mouth. Not once but a hundred times! He says it jokingly, but he

means it—it's his program. The Socialists will make their peaceable revolution, and then the

Communists will rise up and take it away from them. It'll be easy because the Socialists are so

gentle and so kind—they're idealists! You saw it happen in Russia, and then in Hungary—didn't I