Пользователь - o 3b3e7475144cf77c

everything ready and bring Baby and Miss Severne and the maid on a specified date. Jerry

Pendleton would see to the tickets, and Bub would be in charge of the traveling, Feathers being

such a featherbrain.

So there was a new menage, with everything comfortable, and no trouble but the writing of a

few checks and the giving of a few orders. A delightful climate and many delightful people; a

tennis court and somebody always to play; a good piano and people who loved music; only a few

minutes' drive to the old castle, where Lanny and his wife were treated as members of the

family, called up and urged to meet this one and that. Again Lanny heard statesmen discussing

the problems of the world; again they listened to what he had to tell about the strange and

terrifying new movement in Germany, and its efforts to spread itself in all the neighboring

countries. Englishmen of rank and authority talked freely of their empire's affairs, telling what

they would do in this or that contingency; now and then Lanny would find himself thinking:

"What wouldn't Göring pay for this!"

Zoltan had been in Paris, and now came to London. It was the "season," and there were

exhibitions, and chances to make sales. An art expert, like the member of any other profession,

has to hear the gossip of his monde; new men are coming in and old ones going out, and prices

fluctuating exactly as on the stock market. Lanny and his partner still had money in Naziland,

and lists of pictures available in that country, by means of which they expected to get their

money out. Also, there was the London stage, and Rick to go with them to plays and tell the

news of that world. There was the fashion rout, with no end of dances and parties.

Dressmakers and others clamored to provide Irma with costumes suited to her station; they

would bring them out into the country to show her at any hour of the day or night.

Good old Margy Petries, Dowager Lady Eversham-Watson, had opened her town house,

and begged the young couple to make it their headquarters whenever they came to town; she

telegraphed Beauty and Sophie to bring their husbands and come and have a good old-

fashioned spree. When Mrs. Barnes arrived, she, too, was "put up"; that was the custom in

Kentucky, and Margy still called herself a blue-grass-country girl, even at the age of fifty-five.

So it was just like Bienvenu at the height of midwinter; so many things going on that really

you had a hard time choosing, and would rush from one event to the next with scarcely time to

catch your breath. It was extremely difficult for Lanny to find time to brood over the fate of the

world; and that was what his wife had planned. She saw that she was winning out, and was

happy, and proud of her acumen. Until one Saturday noon, arriving at their villa for a week

end, Lanny found a telegram from Bienvenu, signed "Rahel" and reading:

"Letter from Clarinet in place you visited most distressing circumstances he implores help

am airmailing letter."

26

Out of This Nettle, Danger

I

THE argument started as soon as Irma read the telegram and got its meaning clear. She

knew exactly what would be in her husband's mind; she had been thinking about it for more

than a year, watching him, anticipating this moment, living through this scene. And she knew

that he had been doing the same. They had talked about it a great deal, but she hadn't

uttered all of her thoughts, nor he of his; they had dreaded the ordeal, shrinking from the

things that would be said. She knew that was true about herself, and guessed it was true about

him; she guessed that he guessed it about her—and so on through a complication such as

develops when two human souls, tied together by passionate love, discover a basic and

fundamental clash of temperaments, and try to conceal it from each other and even from

themselves.

Irma said: "Lanny, you can't do it! You can't, you can't!" And he replied: "Darling, I have to!

If I didn't I couldn't bear to live!"

So much had been said already that there was nothing to gain by going over it. But that is

the way with lovers' quarrels; each thinks that if he says it one time more, the idea will

penetrate, it will make the impression which it so obviously ought to make, which it has

somehow incomprehensibly failed to make on previous occasions.

Irma protested: "Your wife and child mean nothing to you?"

Lanny answered: "You know they do, dear. I have tried honestly to be a good husband and

father. I have given up many things that I thought were right for me, when I found they were

wrong for you. But I can't give up Freddi to the Nazis."

"A man is free to take up a notion like that—and then all his family duties become nothing?"

"A man takes up a notion like that when there's a cause involved; something that is more

precious to him than his own life."

"You're going to sacrifice Frances and me for Freddi!"

"That's rather exaggerated, darling. You and Frances can stay quite comfortably here while I

go in and do what I can."

"You're not asking me to go with you?"

"It's a job for someone who believes in it, and certainly not for anyone who feels as you do. I

have no right to ask it of you, and that's why I don't."

"What do you suppose will be my state of mind while you are in there risking your life with

those dreadful men?"

"It will be a mistake to exaggerate the danger. I don't think they'll do serious harm to an

American."

"You know they have done shocking things to Americans. You have talked about it often."

"What happened in those cases was accidental; they were mix-ups in street crowds and

public places. You and I have connections in Germany, and I don't think the authorities will

do me any harm on purpose."

"Even if they catch you breaking their laws?"

"I think they'll give me a good scare and put me out."

"You know you don't believe that, Lanny! You're only trying to quiet me down. You will be in

perfectly frightful danger, and I will be in torment."

She broke down and began to weep. It was the first time he had seen her do that, and he was a

soft-hearted man. But he had been thinking it over for a year, and had made up his mind that

this would be the test of his soul. "If I funk this, I'm no good; I'm the waster and parasite I've

always been called."

There was no way to end the argument. He couldn't make her realize the importance of the

matter to him; the duty he owed to what he called "the cause." He had made Freddi Robin

into a Socialist; had taught him the ideal of human brotherhood and equality, what he called

"social justice." But Irma hated all these high-sounding words; she had heard them spoken by so

many disagreeable persons, mostly trying to get money, that the words had become poison to

her. She didn't believe in this "cause"; she believed that brotherhood was rather repulsive, that

equality was another name for envy, and social justice an excuse for outrageous income and

inheritance taxes. So her tears dried quickly, and she grew angry with herself for having shed

them, and with him for making her shed them.

She said: "Lanny, I warn you; you are ruining our love. You are doing something I shall

never be able to forgive you for."

All he could answer was: "I am sorry, darling; but if you made me give up what I believe is

my duty, I should never be able to forgive either you or myself."

II

The airmail letter from Juan arrived. Freddi's message had been written in pencil on a small