atmosphere and local color. After Emily had read the entire script, she offered to put in five
thousand dollars on the same terms as the rest of them, and Sophie, the ex-baroness, was not
to be outdone.
The play would be costly to produce, on account of the money atmosphere. If you want actors
to look like workingmen or labor leaders, you can hire them cheaply, but if you want one who
can play the Chancellor of the Exchequer, you have to dip into your own. Rick, who by now had
considerable experience, estimated the total at thirty thousand dollars, and the figure sounded
familiar to Lanny, because that had been the cost of Gracyn's first production, the sum for
which she had thrown him over. Now he would take a turn at being the "angel"; a higher,
celestial kind, for whom she wouldn't have to act anywhere but on the stage.
II
The play was finished early in April, and the family went north, with Alfy returning to school.
Lanny and Irma motored the mother and father as far as Paris, starting several days ahead; for
Zoltan Kertezsi was there, and they wanted to see the spring Salon through his expert eyes; also
there were plays to be seen, of interest to professionals such as they were about to become. As it
happened, France was in the midst of a furious election campaign, and when you had an uncle
running for the Chamber of Deputies, you were interested to see the show. Hansi and Bess had
consented to come and give a concert for the benefit of his campaign, so it would be a sort of
family reunion.
The Hungarian art expert was his usual serene and kindly self. He had just come back from a
trip to the Middle West, where, strange as it might seem, there were still millionaires who
enjoyed incomes and wanted to buy what they called "art paintings." Lanny had provided
Zoltan with photographs of the Detazes which were still in the storeroom, and three had been
sold, at prices which would help toward the production of
upon putting up a share of the money, not because she knew anything about plays, but because
she loved Lanny and wanted him to have his heart's desires.
She took the same tolerant attitude toward political meetings. If Lanny wanted to go, she would
accompany him, and try to understand the French language shouted in wildly excited tones.
Jesse Blackless was running as candidate in one of those industrial suburbs which surrounded
Paris with a wide Red band. Under the French law you didn't have to be a resident of your
district but had to be a property-owner, so the Red candidate had purchased the cheapest
vacant lot he could find. He had been carefully cultivating the constituency, speaking to
groups of workers every night for months on end, attending committee meetings, even calling
upon the voters in their homes—all for the satisfaction of ousting a Socialist incumbent who had
departed from the "Moscow line." Irma didn't understand these technicalities, but she couldn't
help being thrilled to find this newly acquired uncle the center of attention on a platform,
delivering a fervid oration which drove the crowd to frenzies of delight. Also she couldn't fail to
be moved by the sight of Hansi Robin playing for the workers of a foreign land and being
received as a comrade and brother. If only they hadn't been such terrible-looking people!
III
All this put Lanny in a peculiar position. He attended his uncle's
him to win and told him so. Afterward they repaired with a group of their friends to a cafe
where they had supper and argued and wrangled until the small hours of the morning. A noisy
place, crowded and full of tobacco smoke; Irma had been taken to such haunts in Berlin,
London, and New York, so she knew that this was how the intelligentsia lived. It was supposed
to be "bohemian," and certainly it was different; she could never complain that her marriage
had failed to provide her with adventures.
By the side of the millionairess sat a blond young Russian, speaking to her in English, which
made things easier; he had just come out of the Soviet Union, that place about which she had
heard so many terrible stories. He told her about the Five-Year Plan, which was nearing
completion. Already every part of its program had been overfulfilled; the great collective farms
were sowing this spring more grain than ever before in Russian history; it meant a complete
new era in the annals of mankind. The young stranger was quietly confident, and Irma
shivered, confronting the doom of the world in which she had been brought up. From the
attitude of the others she gathered that he was an important person, an agent of the Comintern,
perhaps sent to see that the campaign followed the correct party line; perhaps he was the
bearer of some of that "Moscow gold" about which one heard so much talk!
Across the table sat Hansi and Bess; and presently they were telling the Comintern man
details about the situation in Germany. Elections to the diets of the various states had just
