down to the West Indies, and perhaps through the Panama Canal to California, and if they
wished, to Honolulu and Japan, Bali, Java, India, Persia—all the romantic and scenic and
historic places they could think of. A university under Diesel power!
X
This made it necessary for Irma to come to a decision which she had postponed to the last
moment. Was she going to take the palace for another year? She had got used to it, and had a
competent staff well trained; also she was established as a hostess, and it seemed a shame to
lose all this momentum. But, on the other hand, money was growing scarcer and scarcer. The
dreadful depression—Lanny had shown her the calculations of an economist that it had cost
the United States half a dozen times the cost of the World War. Thanks to the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation, interest payments on industrial bonds were being met, but many of
Irma's "blue chip" stocks were paying no dividends, and she was telling her friends that she
was living on chocolate, biscuits, and Coca-Cola—meaning not that these were her diet, but
her dividends.
She had Shore Acres on her hands with its enormous overhead; she had had to cut down on
her mother, and the mother in turn had notified all the help that they might stay on and work
for their keep, but there would be no more salaries. Even so, the food bill was large, and the
taxes exorbitant—when were taxes not? Mrs. Barnes's letters conveyed to her daughter a sense
of near destitution.
"You don't really care very much for this palace, do you, Lanny?" So asked the distressed one,
lying in the pink satin splendor of the bed in which Madame de Maintenon was reputed to
have entertained the Sun King.
"You know, dear, I don't undertake to tell you how to spend your money."
"But I'm asking you."
"You know without asking. If you spend more money than you have, you're poor, no matter
what the amount is."
"Do you think if we come back to Paris after the depression, I'll be able to start as a hostess
again?"
"It depends entirely upon how much of your money you have managed to hold on to."
"Oh, Lanny, you're horrid!" exclaimed the hostess.
"You asked for it," he chuckled.
Nearly a year had passed since the Queen Mother had seen her grandchild, and that was
something to be taken into consideration. Her satisfaction would be boundless; and it would
be a pleasure to meet all those New York friends and hear the gossip. Lanny could stand it if it
wasn't for too long. And what a relief to Uncle Joseph Barnes, trustee and manager of the
Barnes estate, to know that his charge wouldn't be drawing any checks for a year!
"Lanny, do you suppose that Johannes can really afford to take care of us all that time?"
"He could go alone if he preferred," replied the son of Budd's. "As a matter of fact, I suspect
the rascal has more money now than ever before in his life. He makes it going and coming;
whether times are good or bad; whether the market goes up or down."
"How does he manage it, Lanny?"
"He's watching all the time, and he keeps his money where he can shift it quickly. He's a bull
in good times and a bear in bad."
"It's really quite wonderful," said Irma. "Do you suppose we could learn to do things that
way?"
"Nothing would please him more than to teach us; but the trouble is you have to put your
mind on it and keep it there."
"I suppose it
in the pink satin couch of the Grand Monarque's official mistress.
XI
The young couple ran down to Juan, and Irma and Beauty held a sort of mothers' conference
on the problems of their future. Beauty was keen on yachting trips; she found them a
distinguished mode of travel; she had learned her geography and history that way, and Irma
might do the same. But the important thing was the safety they afforded. Beauty didn't care
how much Red and Pink talk her young people indulged in, provided that outside Reds and
Pinks couldn't get at them, to borrow their money, get them to start schools or papers or what
not, and involve them in fights with Fascists and police. Carry them off to sea and keep them—
and perhaps find some lovely tropical island where they could settle down and live in peace
and harmony until the cycle of revolutions and counter-revolutions had been completed! Let
the yacht serve as a supply ship to bring the latest musical compositions and whatever else
they had read of; but no Communist or Socialist agitators, no Fascists or Nazis marching,
shouting, brandishing guns and daggers! "Do you suppose they have mosquitoes in the South
Seas?" inquired the soft pink Beauty Budd.
She persuaded Irma that this was the way to keep her temperamental husband happy and
safe. Paris was a frightfully dangerous place right now; look at the way Jesse was carrying on,
rushing about from one meeting to another, making hysterical speeches, calling the Nazis all
the bad names in the French language! A copy of
