Пользователь - o 3b3e7475144cf77c

business manager. The Budds and the Robins went for a visit to Les Forêts, where Emily

Chattersworth had just arrived. Hansi and Bess played for her; and later, while Bess and Lanny

practiced piano duets, Irma sought out the hostess to ask her advice about the problems of a

Pink husband and a Red uncle-in-law.

Mrs. Chattersworth had always been open-minded in the matter of politics; she had allowed

her friends and guests to believe and say what they chose, and as a salonnière had been

content to steer the conversation away from quarrels. Now, she said, the world appeared to be

changing; ever since the war it had been becoming more difficult for gentlemen—yes, and ladies,

too—to keep their political discussions within the limits of courtesy. It seemed to have begun

with the Russian Revolution, which had been such an impolite affair. "You have to be either for

it or against it," remarked Emily; "and whichever you are, you cannot tolerate anyone's being on

the other side."

Said Irma: "The trouble with Lanny is that he's willing to tolerate anybody, and so he's

continually being imposed upon."

"I watched him as a little boy," replied her friend. "It seemed very sweet, his curiosity about

people and his efforts to understand them. But like any virtue, it can be carried to extremes."

Lanny's ears would have burned if he could have heard those two women taking him to pieces

and trying to put him together according to their preferences. The wise and kind Emily, who

had been responsible for his marriage, wanted to make it and keep it a success, and she invited

the young people to stay for a while so that she might probe into the problem. Caution and tact

were necessary, she pointed out to the young wife, for men are headstrong creatures and do not

take kindly to being manipulated and maneuvered. Lanny's toleration for Reds and Pinks was

rooted in his sympathy for suffering, and Irma would love him less if that were taken out of his

disposition.

"I don't mind his giving money away," said Irma. "If only he didn't have to meet such

dreadful people—and so many of them!"

"He's interested in ideas; and apparently they come nowadays from the lower strata. You and

I mayn't like it, but it's a fact that they are crashing the gates. Perhaps it's wiser to let in a few

at a time."

Irma was willing to take any amount of trouble to understand her husband and to keep him

entertained; she was trying to acquire ideas, but she wanted them to be safe, having to do with

music and art and books and plays, and not politics and the overthrowing of the capitalist

system. "What he calls the capitalist system," was the way she phrased it, as if it were a tactical

error to admit that such a thing existed. "I've made sure that he'll never be interested in my

friends in New York," she explained. "But he seems to be impressed by the kind of people he meets

at your affairs, and if you'll show me how, I'll do what I can to cultivate them—before it's too late. I

mean, if he goes much further with his Socialists and Communists, the right sort of people

won't want to have anything to do with him." "I doubt if that will happen," said Emily, smiling.

"They'll tolerate him on your account. Also, they make allowances for Americans— we're

supposed to be an eccentric people, and the French find us entertaining, much as Lanny finds

his Reds and Pinks."

V

The husband wasn't told of this conversation, or others of the kind which followed; but he

became aware, not for the first time in his life, of female arms placed about him, exerting a

gentle pressure in one direction and away from another. Not female elbows poked into his ribs,

but soft, entwining arms; a feeling of warmth, and perhaps a contact of lips, or whispered words

of cajolement: darling, and dear, and intimate pet names which would look silly in print and

sound so from any but a chosen person. Never: "Let's not go there, dear," but instead: "Let's

go here, dear." And always the "here" had to do with music or pictures, books or plays, and

not with the overthrow of the so-called, alleged, or hypothetical capitalist system.

Under Emily's guidance Irma decided that she had made a mistake in discouraging Lanny's

efforts as an art expert. To be sure, it seemed silly to try to make more money when she had so

much, but the prejudices of men had to be respected; they just don't like to take money from

women, and they make it a matter of prestige to earn at least their pocket-money. Irma

decided that Zoltan Kertezsi was an excellent influence in her husband's life. So far she had looked

upon him as a kind of higher servant, but now decided to cultivate him as a friend.

"Let's stay in Paris a while, dear," she proposed. "I really want to understand about pictures,

and it's such a pleasure to have Zoltan's advice."

Lanny, of course, was touched by this act of submission. They went to exhibitions, of which

there appeared to be no end in Paris.

Also, there were private homes having collections, and Zoltan possessed the magic keys that

opened doors to him and his guests. Pretty soon Irma discovered that she could enjoy looking

at beautiful creations. She paid attention and tried to understand the points which Zoltan

explained: the curves of mountains or the shape of trees which made a balanced design in a

landscape; the contrasting colors of an interior; the way figures had been placed and lines

arranged so as to lead the eye to one central feature. Yes, it was interesting, and if this was what

Lanny liked, his wife would like it, too. Marriage was a lottery, she had heard, and you had to

make the best of what you had drawn.

VI

"Zaharoff's house on the Avenue Hoche contains some gay and bright Bouchers," remarked

Lanny. "He's not apt to be there, but the servants know me, so no doubt we can get in."

The three of them called at the white-stone mansion with the glass-covered window-boxes full of

flowers. The tottery old butler was still on duty, and the beautiful portraits still hung in the

drawing-room where Sir Basil had burned his private papers and set fire to his chimney. The

butler reported that his master was at the chateau and seldom came to town now; but no one

knew when he might come, and he continued the custom which had prevailed ever since Lanny

had known him, of having a full-course dinner prepared every evening, enough for himself and

several guests. If after a certain hour he had not arrived, the servants ate what they wanted and

gave the rest to worthy poor. The duquesa's bybloemen and bizarres still bloomed in her garden,

fifteen springtimes after she had shown them to Lanny. "They have their own kind of

immortality," she had said; and these words had been repeated to him by an old Polish woman

in a Mother Hubbard wrapper, then living in a tenement room on Sixth Avenue, New York,

with the elevated railroad trains roaring past the windows.

There were old masters worth seeing at Balincourt, and Lanny telephoned and made an

appointment to bring his wife and his friend. He motored them out on a day of delightful

sunshine, and the Knight Commander and Grand Officer received the party with every

evidence of cordiality. He had discovered that Lanny's wife was kind, and any lonely old man

appreciates the attentions of a beautiful young woman. He showed them his David and his

Fragonard, his Goya, his Ingres, and his Corots. These also had their kind of immortality, a

magical power to awaken life in the souls of those who looked at them. Zaharoff had told Lanny