Sooner or later the Nazis would have to make up their minds which master they meant to
serve.
There lay the drama of present day events in Germany, and Lanny strove to explain it to the
French workers and to such of their leaders as he met. Hitler sat in his study in Berlin, or in
Munich, or in the retreat which he had bought for himself in the mountains, and the Nazi
chieftains came to him and argued and pulled him this way and that; he thought it over, and
chose whatever course seemed to him to open the way to power. He was as slippery as an eel,
and as quick to move, and nobody could say what he was going to do until he had done it. The
one thing you could say for sure was that National Socialism was power without conscience;
you might call it the culmination of capitalism, or a degenerate form of Bolshevism—names
didn't matter, so long as you understood that it was counter-revolution.
The important question was, whether this same development was to be expected in every
country. Was the depression going to wipe out the middle classes and drive them into the arms of
demagogues? Were the workers being driven to revolt, and would their attempts be met by the
overthrow of parliaments? Were the Communists right in their seemingly crazy idea that
Fascism was a necessary stage in the breakdown of capitalism?
Apparently the question was up for answer in the land which Lanny and Irma called theirs.
The ex-service men who had gone overseas to fight for their country had come back to find the
jobs and the money in the hands of others. Now they were unemployed, many of them
starving, and they gathered in Washington demanding relief; some brought their destitute
families and swarmed upon the steps of the Capitol or camped in vacant lots beside the
Potomac. The Great Engineer fell into a panic and could think of nothing to do but turn the
army loose on them, kill four, and burn the tents and pitiful belongings of all. The "bonus men"
were driven out, a helpless rabble, no one caring where they went, so long as they stopped
bothering politicians occupied with getting re-elected.
To Lanny this appeared the same thing as the Cabinet of the Barons, seizing control of
Prussia and ruling Germany with only a few votes in the Reichstag. It was Poincaire occupying
the Ruhr for the benefit of the Comite des Forges; it was Zaharoff sending an army into Turkey
to get oil concessions. It was the same type of men all over the world. They tried to grab one
another's coal and steel and oil and gold; yet, the moment they were threatened by their wage
slaves anywhere, they got together to fight against the common peril. Do it with the army, do it
with gangsters, do it with the workers' own leaders, buying them or seducing them with titles,
honors, and applause!
Lanny could see that clearly; and it is a pleasure to the mind to discover unity in the midst of
variety. But then the thought would come to him: "My father is one of these men, and so are
his father and his brothers. My sister's father-in-law is one, and so was my wife's father, and
all the men of her family." That spoiled the pleasure in Lanny's mind.
X
Two or three weeks passed, and ambition began to stir once more in the soul of Irma Barnes
Budd. There was that splendid palace in Paris, for which she was paying over eighty thousand
francs rent per month, and nearly as much for upkeep, whether she used it or not. Now it was
autumn, one of the delightful seasons in la Ville Lumiere. The
mountains and the sea, and there were the autumn Salons, and operas and concerts and all the
things that Lanny loved; there were balls and parties, an automobile show and other displays
of luxury. The young couple set out in their car, and Sophie and her husband in theirs, and
Beauty and her husband in hers. Mr. Dingle didn't mind wherever she took him, for, strange as
it might seem, God was in Paris, and there were people there who knew Him, even in the
midst of the rout of pleasure-seeking.
Margy, Dowager Lady Eversham-Watson, came from London, bringing Nina and Rick for a
short holiday. Rick was a celebrity now, and the hostesses were after him. Also General Graf
Stubendorf was invited, in return for his hospitality, and to Lanny's surprise he accepted.
Others of the fashionable Berliners came, and it was hands across the Rhein again—but Lanny
was no longer naive, and couldn't persuade himself that this was going to keep the peace
among the great European powers. The Conference on Arms Limitation was still arguing at
Geneva, and facing complete breakdown. The statesmen and fashionable folk, even the army
men, would wine and dine one another and be the best of friends; but they would go on
piling up weapons and intriguing, each against all the others—until one day an
be sounded, and you would see them all scurrying back to their own side of the river, or
mountains, or whatever the boundary line might be.
It didn't take Irma long to become the accomplished hostess. With Emily Chattersworth and
