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people. They bought and sold securities and made fortunes or lost them, and that seemed a

conventional and respectable kind of life; but now she had been taken to a household full of

Reds and Pinks of all shades, and spiritualist mediums and religious healers, munitions makers

and Jewish Schieber, musicians and painters and art dealers—you never knew when you

opened your eyes in the moming what strange new creatures you were going to encounter

before night. Even Lanny, who was so dear and sweet, and with whom Irma had entered into

the closest of all intimacies, even he became suddenly a stranger when he got stirred up and

began pouring out his schemes for making the world over—schemes which clearly involved his

giving up his own property, and Irma's giving up hers, and wiping out the hereditary rights of

the long-awaited and closely guarded Frances Barnes Budd!

IV

Uncle Jesse stayed to lunch, then went his way; and after the nap which the doctor had

prescribed for the nursing mother, Irma enjoyed the society of her stepfather-in-law—if there

is a name for this odd relationship. Mr. Parsifal Dingle, Beauty's new husband, came over from

the villa to call on the baby. Irma knew him well, for they had spent the past summer on a

yacht; he was a religious mystic, and certainly restful after the Reds and the Pinks. He never

argued, and as a rule didn't talk unless you began a conversation; he was interested in things

going on in his own soul, and while he was glad to tell about them, you had to ask. He

would sit by the bassinet and gaze at the infant, and there would come a blissful look on his

round cherubic face; you would think there were two infants, and that their souls must be

completely in tune.

The man of God would close his eyes, and be silent for a while, and Irma wouldn't interrupt

him, knowing that he was giving little Frances a "treatment." It was a sort of prayer with which

he filled his mind, and he was quite sure that it affected the mind of the little one. Irma

wasn't sure, but she knew it couldn't do any harm, for there was nothing except good in the

mind of this gentle healer. He seemed a bit uncanny while sitting with Madame Zyszynski, the

Polish medium, in one of her trances; conversing in the most matter-of-fact way with the alleged

Indian spirit. "Tecumseh," as he called himself, "was whimsical and self-willed, and would tell

something or refuse to tell, according to whether or not you were respectful to him and

whether or not the sun was shining in the spirit world. Gradually Irma had got used to it all,

for the spirits didn't do any harm, and quite certainly Mr. Dingle didn't; on the contrary, if you

felt sick he would cure you. He had cured several members of the Bienvenu household, and it

might be extremely convenient in an emergency.

Such were Irma's reflections during the visits. She would ask him questions and let him

talk, and it would be like going to church. Irma found it agreeable to talk about loving

everybody, and thought that it might do some people a lot of good; they showed the need of it

in their conversation, the traces they revealed of envy, hatred, malice, and all

uncharitableness. Mr. Dingle wanted to change the world, just as much as any Bolshevik, but

he had begun with himself, and that seemed to Irma a fine idea; it didn't threaten the Barnes

fortune or the future of its heiress. The healer would read his mystical books, and magazines

of what he called "New Thought," and then he would wander about the garden, looking at the

flowers and the birds, and perhaps giving them a treatment—for they too had life in them and

were products of love. Bienvenu appeared to contain everything that Mr. Dingle needed, and

he rarely went off the estate unless someone invited him.

The strangest whim of fate, that the worldly Beauty Budd should have chosen this man of

God to accompany her on the downhill of life! All her friends laughed over it, and were

bored to death with her efforts to use the language of "spirituality." Certainly it hadn't kept her

from working like the devil to land the season's greatest "catch" for her son; nor did it keep

her from exulting brazenly in her triumph. Beauty's religious talk no more than Lanny's

Socialist talk was causing them to take steps to distribute any large share of Irma's unearned

increment. On the contrary, they had stopped giving elaborate parties at Bienvenu, which was

hard on everybody on the Cap d'Antibes—the tradesmen, the servants, the musicians, the

couturiers, all who catered to the rich. It was hard on the society folk, who had been so scared

by the panic and the talk of hard times on the way. Surely somebody ought to set an example

of courage and enterprise—and who could have done it better than a glamour girl with a whole

bank-vault full of "blue chip" stocks and bonds? What was going to become of smart society if its

prime favorites began turning their estates into dairy farms and themselves into stud cattle?

V

There came a telegram from Berlin: "Yacht due at Cannes we are leaving by train tonight

engage hotel accommodations. Bess." Of course Lanny wouldn't follow those last instructions.

When friends are taking you for a cruise and paying all your expenses for several months, you

don't let them go to a hotel even for a couple of days. There was the Lodge, a third house on

the estate; it had been vacant all winter, and now would be opened and freshly aired and dusted.

Irma's secretary, Miss Featherstone, had been established as a sort of female major-domo and

took charge of such operations. The expected guests would have their meals with Irma and

Lanny, and "Feathers" would consult with the cook and see to the ordering of supplies.

Everything would run as smoothly as water down a mill-race; Irma would continue to lie in the

sunshine, read magazines, listen to Lanny play the piano, and nurse Baby Frances when one of

the maids brought her.

Lanny telephoned his old friend Emily Chattersworth, who took care of the cultural activities

of this part of the Riviera. Her drawing-room was much larger than any at Bienvenu, and

people were used to coming there whenever a celebrity was available. Hansi Robin always

played for her, and the fashionable folk who cared for music and the musical folk who were

socially acceptable would be invited to Sept Chenes for a treat. Emily would send Hansi a check,

and he would endorse it over to be used for the workers' educational project which was Lanny's

special hobby.

Just before sundown of that day Lanny and Irma sat on the loggia of their home, which

looked out over the Golfe Juan, and watched the trim white Bessie Budd glide into the harbor of

Cannes. They knew her a long way off, for she had been their home during the previous

summer, and Lanny had taken two other cruises in her. With a pair of field-glasses they could

recognize Captain Moeller, who had had a chance to marry them but had funked it. They could

almost imagine they heard his large Prussian voice when it was time to slow down for passing

the breakwater.

Next morning but one, Lanny drove into the city, with his little half-sister Marceline at his

side and Irma's chauffeur following with another car. The long blue express rolled in and

delivered five of their closest friends, plus a secretary and a nursemaid in a uniform and cap

with blue streamers, carrying an infant in arms. It was on account of this last that the cruise was

being taken so early in the year; the two lactant mothers would combine their dairy farms,