There stood unused on the Bienvenu estate a comfortable dwelling, the Lodge, which Lanny
had built for Nina and Rick. He begged them to come and occupy it this season; he had some
important ideas he wanted to discuss. But Rick said the pater had been hit too hard by the slump,
which seemed to have been aimed at landowners all over the world. Lanny replied with a
check to cover the cost of the tickets; it had been earned by the sale of one of Marcel's pictures,
and there were a hundred more in the storeroom. Also, Lanny explained, the vegetable garden at
Bienvenu had been enlarged, so as to give some of Leese's cousins a chance to earn their keep.
Come and help to eat the stuff!
Mother and father and the three children came; and after they had got settled, Lanny
revealed what he had in mind: to get some more money out of the picture business (perhaps
Irma would want to put some in) to found a weekly paper, with Rick as editor. They would try
to wake up the intellectuals and work for some kind of co-operative system in Europe before it
was too late. Lanny said he didn't know enough to edit a paper himself, but would be what in
America was called an "angel."
Rick said that was a large order, and did his friend realize what he was letting himself in for?
The commercial magazine field was pretty crowded, and a propaganda paper never paid
expenses, but cost like sin. Lanny said: "Well, I've spent my share on sin, and I might try
something else for a change."
"One can't publish a paper in a place like Cannes," declared Rick. "Where would you go?"
"I've wondered if it mightn't be possible to bring out a paper in London, and at the same time
in Paris in French?"
"You mean with the same contents?"
"Well, practically the same."
"I should say that might be done if the paper were general and abstract. If you expect to deal
with current events, you'd find the interests and tastes of the two peoples too far apart."
"The purpose would be to bring them together, Rick. If they read the same things, they
might learn to understand each other."
"Yes, but you're trying to force them to read what they don't want. The paper would seem
foreign to both sides; your enemies would call it that and make it appear still more so."
"I don't say it would be easy," replied the young idealist. "What makes it hard is exactly what
makes it important."
"I don't dispute the need," Rick said. "But it would cost a pile of money: A paper has to come
out regularly, and if you have a deficit, it goes on and on."
"Would you be interested in it as a job?" persisted the other.
"I'd have to think it over. I've come down here with a mind full of a play."
That was the real trouble, as it turned out. There was no use imagining that anybody could
edit a paper as a sideline; it was a full-time job for several men, and Rick would have to give up
his life's ambition, which was to become a dramatist. He had had just enough success to keep
him going. That, too, was an important task: to force modern social problems into the theater,
to break down the taboo which put the label of propaganda upon any effort to portray that class
struggle which was the basic fact of the modern world. Rick had tried it eight or ten times, and
said that if he had put an equal amount of energy and ability into portraying the sexual
entanglements of the idle rich, he could have joined that envied group and had plenty of
entanglements. But he was always thinking of some wonderful new idea which no audience
would be able to resist; he had one now, and so the Franco-British weekly would have to wait
until the potential editor had relieved his mind.
Lanny said: "If it's a good play, maybe Irma and I will back it." He always included his wife,
out of politeness, and the same motive would cause her to come along.
"That costs money, too," was Rick's reply. "But at least, if the play falls flat, you don't have to
produce it again the next week and the week after."
VII
Zaharoff was back at his hotel in Monte, and would send his car for Madame Zyszynski, and
write notes expressing his gratitude to the family. He said he wished there were something he
could do in return; and apparently he meant it, for when Robbie Budd came into possession of
a block of New England-Arabian stock, he came to see the old man, who bought the stock at
Robbie's own price. It wasn't a large amount, but Lanny said it was a sign that the duquesa
really was "coming through."
Beauty was devoured by curiosity about these seances, and questioned Madame every time she
came back; but the medium stuck to her story that she had no idea of what happened when
she was in her trance. Evidently Tecumseh was behaving well, for when she came out she
would find the sitter gracious and considerate. She always had tea with the maid of Sir Basil's
married daughter, and sometimes the great man himself asked questions about her life and ideas.
Evidently he was reading along the lines of spiritualism, but he never said a word about
himself, nor did he mention the duquesa's name.
