extremely fashionable address, and it was incomprehensible to any comrade in distress that a
person who lived, even temporarily, in the palace of the Duc de Belleaumont could fail to be
rolling in wealth, and be in position to help him, and all his comrades, and his sisters and his
cousins and his aunts back in the homeland, and bring them all to Paris and put them up in
one of the guest suites of the palace— or at least pay for the rent of a garret. It was a situation
trying to the tempers and to the moral sense of many unfortunate persons. Not all of them
were saints, by any means, and hunger is a powerful force, driving people to all sorts of
expedients. There were Reds who were not above exaggerating their distress; there were
common beggars and cheats who would pretend to be Reds, or anything whatever in order to
get a handout. As time went on such problems would grow worse, because parasites increase
and multiply like all other creatures, and are automatically driven to perfect the arts by which
they survive.
Lanny had been through this and had learned costly and painful lessons from the refugees of
Fascism; but now it was worse, because Hitler was taking Mussolini's arts and applying them
with German thoroughness. Also, Lanny's own position was worse because he had a rich wife,
and no refugee could be made to understand how, if he lived with her, he couldn't get money
from her. He must be getting it, because look at his car, and how he dressed, and the places
he went to! Was he a genuine sympathizer, or just a playboy seeking thrills? If the latter, then
surely he was a fair mark; you could figure that if you didn't get his money, the tailors and
restaurateurs and what not would get it; so keep after him and don't be troubled by false
modesty.
Irma, like Beauty, had a "bourgeois mind," and wanted to say the things which bourgeois
ladies say. But she had discovered by now what hurt her husband's feelings and what, if
persisted in, made him angry. They had so many ways of being happy together, and she did so
desire to avoid quarreling, as so many other young couples were doing. She would repress her
ideas on the subject of the class struggle, and try by various devices to keep her weak-minded
partner out of the way of temptation. The servants were told that when dubious-looking
strangers called, they were to say that Monsieur Budd was not at home, and that they didn't
know when he would return. Irma would invent subtle schemes to keep him occupied and out
of the company of Red deputies and Pink editors.
But Lanny wasn't altogether without understanding of subtleties. He had been brought up
with bourgeois ladies, and knew their minds, and just when they were engaged in
manipulating him, and what for. He tried to play fair about it, and not give too much of Irma's
money to the refugees, and not so much of his own that he would be caught without funds.
This meant that he, too, had to do a lot of dodging and making of excuses to the unfortunates;
and then he would feel ashamed of himself, and more sick at heart than ever, because the
world wasn't what he wanted it to be, norwas he the noble and generous soul he would have
preferred to believe himself.
III
In spite of the best efforts in the world, Lanny found it impossible to keep out of arguments
with the people he met. Political and economic affairs kept forcing themselves upon him.
People who came to the house wanted to talk about what was happening in Germany, and to
know what he thought—or perhaps they already knew, and were moved to challenge him.
Nobody had been better trained in drawing-room manners than Beauty Budd's son, but in
these times even French urbanity would fail; people couldn't listen to ideas which they
considered outrageous without giving some signs of disapproval. Gone were the old days when
it was a gossip tidbit that Mr. Irma Barnes was a Pink and that his wife was upset about it;
now it was a serious matter, and quite insufferable.
"I thought you said you were not a Communist," remarked Madame de Cloisson, the
banker's wife, with acid in her tone.
"I am not, Madame. I am only defending those fundamental liberties which have been the
glory of the French Republic."
"Liberties which the Communists repudiate, I am told!"
"Even so, Madame, we do not wish to make ourselves like them, or to surrender what we
hold dear."
"That sounds very well, but it means that you are doing exactly what they would wish to have
done."
That was all, but it was enough. Madame de Cloisson was a
might mean success or failure to an American woman with social ambitions. Irma didn't hear
this passage at arms, but some kind friend was at pains to tell her about it, and she knew that
it might cancel the efforts she had been making during the past year. But still she didn't say
anything; she wanted to be fair, and she knew that Lanny had been fair—he had told her about
his eccentricities before he asked for her, and she had taken him on his own terms. It was
