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gone north to the Chateau de Balin-court, and had written to ask if Beauty would do him the

great favor of letting Madame come for a while. She had spent the month of August there, and

had been well treated, and impressed by the grandeur of the place, but rather lonely, with those

strange Hindu servants to whom she couldn't talk. When she was leaving, the old gentleman

had presented her with a diamond solitaire ring which must have cost twenty or thirty

thousand francs. She was proud of it, but afraid to wear it and afraid it might be stolen, so she

had asked Beauty to put it away in her safe-deposit box.

Lanny took up the subject of child study again. He would have liked to find out if Baby

Frances would discover the art of the dance for herself; but this was not possible, because

Marceline was there, dancing all over the place, and nothing could keep her from taking a tiny

toddler by the hands and teaching her to caper and jump. Every day the baby grew stronger,

and before that winter was over there was a pair of dancers, and if the phonograph or the

piano wasn't handy, Marceline would sing little tunes and sometimes make up words about

Baby and herself.

Sophie and her husband would come over for bridge with Beauty and Irma; so Lanny was left

free to catch up on his reading or to run over to Cannes to his workers'-education project. The

workers hadn't had any vacation, but were right where he had left them. Intellectually they had

gained; nearly all could now make speeches, and as a rule they made them on the subject of

Socialism versus Communism. While they all hated Fascism, they didn't hate it enough to

make them willing to get together to oppose it. They were glad to hear Lanny tell about the

wonderland of New York; many had got it mixed up with Utopia, and were surprised to hear

that it was not being spared by the breakdown of capitalism. Bread- lines and apple-selling on

the streets of that city of plutocrats— sapristi!

IV

Another season on the Riviera: from the point of view of the hotelkeepers the worst since

the war, but for people who had money and liked quiet the pleasantest ever. The fortunate few

had the esplanade and the beaches to themselves; the sunshine was just as bright, the sea as

blue, and the flowers of the Cap as exquisite. Food was abundant and low in price, labor

plentiful and willing— in short, Providence had fixed everything up for you.

When Irma and Beauty Budd emerged from the hands of modistes and friseurs, all ready for

a party, they were very fancy showpieces; Lanny was proud to escort them and to see the

attention they attracted. He kept himself clad according to their standards, did the. honors as

he had been taught, and for a while was happy as a young man a la mode. His wife was deeply

impressed by Emily Chattersworth, that serene and gracious hostess, and was taking her as a

model. Irma would remark: "If we had a larger house, we could entertain as Emily does." She

would try experiments, inviting this eminent person and that, and when they came she would

say to her husband: "I believe you and I could have a salon if we went about it seriously."

Lanny came to recognize that she was considering this as a career. Emily was growing feeble,

and couldn't go on forever; there would have to be someone to take her place, to bring the

fashionable French and the fashionable Americans together and let them meet intellectuals,

writers and musicians and statesmen who had made names for themselves in the proper

dignified way. As a rule such persons didn't have the money or time to entertain, nor were

their wives up to it; if you rendered that free service, it made you "somebody" in your own

right.

Lanny had said, rather disconcertingly, that she didn't know enough for the job; since which

time Irma had been on watch. She had met a number of celebrities, and studied each one,

thinking: "Could I handle you? What is it you want?" They seemed to like good food and

wine, like other people; they appreciated a fine

house and liked to come into it and sun themselves. Certainly they liked beautiful women—

these were the suns! Irma's dressing-room in the Cottage was rather small, but it contained a

pier-glass mirror, and she knew that what she saw there was all right. She knew that her

manner of reserve impressed people; it gave her a certain air of mystery, and caused them to

imagine things about her which weren't really there. The problem was to keep them from

finding out!

Each of the great men had his "line," something he did better than anybody else. Lanny

assumed that you had to read his book, listen to his speeches, or whatever it was; but Irma

made up her mind that this was her husband's naivete. He would have had to, but a woman

didn't. A woman observed that a man wanted to talk about himself, and a woman who was

good at listening to that was good enough for anything. She had to express admiration, but not

too extravagantly; that was a mistake the gushy woman made, and the man decided that she

was a fool. But the still, deep woman, the Mona Lisa woman, the one who said in a dignified way: "I

have wanted very much to know about that—please tell me more," she was the one who

warmed a celebrity's heart.

The problem, Irma decided, was not to get them to talk, but to get them to stop! The

function of a salonniere was to apportion the time, to watch the audience and perceive when

it wanted a change and bring about the change so tactfully that nobody noticed it. Irma

watched the technique of her hostess, and began asking questions; and this was by no means

displeasing to Emily, for she too was not above being flattered and liked the idea of taking on

an understudy. She showed Irma her address-book, full of secret marks which only her

confidential secretary understood. Some meant good things and some bad.

Lanny perceived that this developing interest in a salon was based upon a study of his own

peculiarities. He had always loved Emily and enjoyed her affairs, having been admitted to

them even as a boy, because he had such good manners. What Irma failed to note was that

Lanny was changing: the things which had satisfied him as a boy didn't necessarily do so when

he had passed his thirty-second birthday, and when the capitalist system had passed its

apogee. He would come home from one of Emily's soirees and open up a bunch of mail which

was like a Sophoclean chorus lamenting the doom of the House of Oedipus. The front page of a

newspaper was a record of calamities freshly befallen, while the editorial page was a betrayal

of fears of others to come.

For years the orthodox thinkers of France had congratulated that country upon its immunity

from depressions. Thanks to the French Revolution, the agriculture of the country was in the

hands of peasant proprietors; also the industry was diversified, not concentrated and

specialized like that of Germany, Britain, and America. France had already devalued her money,

one step at a time; she possessed a great store of gold, and so had escaped that hurricane

which had thrown Britain off the gold standard, followed by a dozen other countries in a row.

But now it appeared that the orthodox thinkers had been wishful. Hard times were hitting

France; unemployment was spreading, the rich sending their money abroad, the poor hiding

what they could get in their mattresses or under the oldest olive tree in the field. Suffering and