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piece of flimsy paper, crumpled up as if someone had hidden it in his mouth or other bodily

orifice. It was faded, but Rahel had smoothed it out and pasted the corners to a sheet of

white paper so that it could be read. It was addressed to Lanny and written in English. "I am in

a bad way. I have written to you but had no reply. They are trying to make me tell about other

people and I will not. But I cannot stand any more. Do one thing for me, try to get some poison

to me. Do not believe anything they say about me. Tell our friends I have been true."

There was no signature; Freddi knew that Lanny would know his handwriting, shaky and

uncertain as it was. The envelope was plain, and had been mailed in Munich; the handwriting

of the address was not known to Lanny, and Rahel in her letter said that she didn't know it

either.

So there it was. Irma broke down again; it was worse than she had imagined, and she knew

now that she couldn't keep Lanny from going. She stopped arguing with him about political

questions, and tried only to convince him of the futility of whatever efforts he might make.

The Nazis owned Germany, and it was madness to imagine that he could thwart their will

inside their own country. She offered to put up money, any amount of money, even if she had to

withdraw from social life. "Go and see Göring," she pleaded. "Offer him cash, straight out."

But Rick—oh, how she hated him all of a sudden!—Rick had persuaded Lanny that this was not

to be done. Lanny wouldn't go near Göring, or any of the other Nazis, not even Kurt, not even

Heinrich. They wouldn't help, and might report him and have him watched. Göring or

Goebbels would be sure to take such measures. Lanny said flatly: "I'm going to help Freddi to

escape from Dachau."

"Fly over the walls, I suppose?" inquired Irma, with bitterness.

"There are many different ways of getting out of prison. There are people in France right now

who have managed to do it. Sometimes they dig under the walls; sometimes they hide in

delivery wagons, or are carried out in coffins. I'll find somebody to help me for a price."

"Just walk up to somebody on the street and say: 'How much will you charge to help me get a

friend out of Dachau?' "

"It's no good quarreling, dear. I have to put my mind on what I mean to do. I don't want to

delay, because if I do, Freddi may be dead, and then I'd blame myself until I was dead, too."

So Irma had to give up. She had told him what was in her heart, and even though she would

break down and weep, she wouldn't change; on the contrary, she would hold it against him

that he had made her behave in that undignified fashion. In her heart she knew that she

hated the Robin family, all of them; they were alien to her, strangers to her soul. If she could

have had her way she would never have been intimate with them; she would have had her own

yacht and her own palace and the right sort of friends in it. But this Socialism business had

made Lanny promiscuous, willing to meet anybody, an easy victim for any sort of pretender,

any slick, canting "idealist"—how she loathed that word! She had been forced to make

pretenses and be polite; but now this false "cause" was going to deprive her of her husband and

her happiness, and she knew that she heartily despised it.

It wasn't just love of herself. It was love of Lanny, too. She wanted to help him, she wanted

to take care of him; but this "class struggle" stepped in between and made it impossible; tore

him away from her, and sent him to face danger, mutilation, death. Things that Irma and her class

were supposed to be immune from! That was what your money meant; it kept you safe, it gave

you privilege and security. But Lanny wanted to throw it all away. He had got the crazy

notion that you had no right to money; that having got it, you must look down upon it, spurn

it, and thwart the very purposes for which it existed, the reasons why your forefathers had

worked so hard! If that was not madness, who could find anything that deserved the name?

III

All social engagements were called off while this duel was fought out. Irma said that she had a

bad headache; but as this affliction had not been known to trouble her hitherto, the rumor

spread that the Irma Barneses were having a quarrel; everybody tried to guess what it could be

about, but nobody succeeded. Only three persons were taken into the secret; Rick, and the

mothers of the two quarrelers. Rick said: "I wish I could help you, old chap; but you know

I'm a marked man in Germany; I have written articles." Lanny said: "Of course."

As for Fanny Barnes, she considered it her duty to give Lanny a lecture on the wrongness of

deserting his family on account of any Jew or all of them. Lanny, in turn, considered it his

duty to hear politely all that his mother-in-law had to say. He knew it wasn't any good

talking to her about "causes"; he just said: "I'm sorry, Mother, but I feel that I have incurred

obligations, and I have to repay them. Do what you can to keep Irma cheerful until I get

back." It was a rather solemn occasion; he might not come back, and he had a feeling that his

mother-in-law would rind that a not altogether intolerable solution of the problem.

As for Beauty, she wasn't much good in this crisis; the sheer horridness of it seemed to

paralyze her will. She knew her boy's feeling for the Robin boys, and that it couldn't be

overcome. She knew also that he suspected her concern about Irma's happiness as being not

altogether disinterested. The mother dared not say what was in the deeps of her heart, her

fear that Lanny might lose his ultra-precious wife if he neglected her and opposed her so

recklessly. And of all places to leave her—on the doorstep of Lord Wickthorpe! Beauty developed a

crise des nerfs, with a real headache, and this didn't diminish the gossip and speculation.

Meanwhile, Lanny went ahead with his preparations. He wrote Rahel to have a photograph

of Freddi reduced to that small size which is used on passports, and to airmail it to him at

once; he had a reason for that, which she was at liberty to guess. He wrote Jerry Pendleton to

hold himself in readiness for a call to bring a camion to Germany and return the Detaze

paintings to their home. That would be no hardship, because the tourist season was over and

Cerise could run the office.

Lanny gave his friend Zoltan a check covering a good part of the money he had in the

Hellstein banks in Berlin and Munich; Zoltan would transfer the money to his own account, and

thus the Nazis wouldn't be able to confiscate it. In case Lanny needed the money, he could

telegraph and Zoltan could airmail him a check. The ever discreet friend asked no questions, and

thus would be able to say that he knew nothing about the matter. Lanny talked about a

picture deal which he thought he could put through in Munich, and Zoltan gave him advice

on this. Having been pondering all these matters for more than a year, Lanny was thoroughly

prepared.

When it came to the parting, Lanny's young wife and Lanny's would-be-young mother both

broke down. Both offered to go with him; but he said No. Neither approved his mission, and

neither's heart would be in the disagreeable task. He didn't tell the plain truth, which was

that he was sick of arguments and excitements; it is one of the painful facts about marital

disputes that they cause each of the disputants to grow weary of the sound of the other's voice,

and to count quiet and the freedom to have one's own way as the greatest of life's blessings.