Jim frowned, as a tooth of Caroline’s comb broke in his wiry coppery hair. “I broke your comb. Sorry. Why can’t you borrow? Next March it’s all yours, anyway. Bankers love that sort of short-term loan. How can Blaise stop them from lending?”
“By lying. Through his lawyers. Pretending the estate is compromised.”
“That’s easily investigated.” Jim sat in a rocking chair, and rested his head on a spotless new antimacassar. All St. Louis had been cleaned up for the world’s delight.
Caroline got out of bed; began to dress. “In time, I could straighten all this out. But there’s no time. Blaise has been putting pressure on John’s debtors. If he does not pay up now, he will be ruined.” Although Caroline rather liked the sound of “he will be ruined,” the reality was impossible to grasp. What was financial ruin? In her own life, there had been so many financial crises, so many friends or acquaintances “ruined,” and yet they went right on eating breakfast, and seeing one another. Ruin, as such, did not mean much to her. But the thought of a forced sale of the Tribune was like a knife at her throat, a most disagreeable sensation.
“You will have to sell to Blaise.” Jim was flat.
“I would rather die.”
“What else?”
“Other than death?”
“Other than a sale. You should follow Mr. Adams’s advice, and keep control…”
“If he will let me.”
Jim stared at her in the mirror, where she was now repairing the damage that Eros does to even the simplest coiffeur. “Why not,” said Jim, “let John go under? He’s the one at fault, not you.”
“Because, my darling, he knows who the father of my child is.” Caroline looked at Jim’s face, next to hers in the mirror, smaller than hers, thanks to perspective, so ably taught by the drawing mistress at Mlle. Souvestre’s. Caroline enjoyed Jim’s look of astonishment.
“But he’s the father, isn’t he?”
“No, he’s not.”
There was a long silence, broken by Jim’s sudden laughter. He sprang to his feet, like a boy, and embraced Caroline from behind, kissed the nape of her neck, causing the hair, controlled at last, to come crashing down. “Oh, damn,” said Caroline, for the first time in her life. “My hair.”
“My child! Emma’s mine, too!”
“You sound like a horse-breeder.”
“Why not? I am the acknowledged stud. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you. Now if you come near my hair again, I shall… do something drastic.” Caroline again pinned up the mountain of cleverly coiled hair, all hers, as Marguerite used to gloat, when she did the arranging.
Jim retreated to his chair. He seemed delighted; and Caroline wondered why. Men were very odd, certainly. Jim had two children now by Kitty; and one by her. “Are there any others?” she asked.
“Other what?”
“Children of yours that I should know about? When little Emma grows up, she will want to know all her half-brothers and -sisters.”
Jim shook his head. “None that I know of.” He frowned. “How does John know it’s me?”
“He doesn’t. I was just being dramatic. All he knows is that Emma’s not his. When I discovered I was pregnant, I told him, and he married me. It was my money for his-for my respectability.”
“Why didn’t you just pretend it was his?”
“Because I’ve never really been to bed with him.”
Jim whistled, an engaging rustic sound. “You really are French,” he said at last.
Caroline was not amused. “You would be surprised just how American I am, particularly in a situation like this. I am not about to lose…” But this, she knew, even as she spoke, was hollow boasting. She was about to lose the Tribune. She had considered, seriously, allowing John to fail; but honor forbade such a course, not to mention common sense. If she did not keep her side of their bargain, he would be free to divorce her or, worse, annul the unconsummated marriage, and tell the press why.
“Shall I work on Blaise? He seems to like me.”
“More than that is my impression.”
Jim’s head suddenly filled with blood; the face became scarlet. The hydraulic system that produced a blush was, Caroline observed, with a certain wonder, the same as that which produced a man’s sex. “I don’t,” he stammered, “know what you mean.”
“Which means you know exactly what I mean. He is like a school-girl around you.” Caroline rose from her dressing table, armored for the day. “Seduce him.”
“That is definitely French,” said Jim, himself again.
“No. It’s English, actually. Le vice anglais, we call it, and not unknown in these parts, either.”
“Would you really want me to…?” Jim could not say what, after all, was unsayable in American City.
“You might like it. After all, Blaise is much better-looking than me.”
“I don’t think I could, even for you.” Jim held her, carefully, about the waist, as they walked to the door. “But I guess I could sort of flirt with him, maybe.”
“You American boys!” Caroline was now entirely amused.
“Well, it’s the least I could do, for you giving me Emma.”
In the lobby, they found themselves face to face with Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge, a lady both censorious and serene.
“Caroline,” said Mrs. Lodge, looking at Jim.
“Sister Anne. You know Congressman Day, don’t you? And Mrs. Day,” Caroline was inspired to add. Then Caroline turned to Jim, and said, “Where’s Kitty? She was here just a minute ago.”
“She left her purse upstairs.”
Sister Anne was duly taken in. “Are you going to hear Mr. Hay?” she asked.
“Hear-and record it all, for the Tribune.”
“Theodore is wicked, forcing him to come here like this. He should be home in bed at Sunapee.” Sister Anne bade them farewell; and moved on.
“You would also make a good politician,” said Jim, as they crossed over to Olive Street, where a special car would take them to the Exposition.
“Because I lie so easily?” Caroline frowned. “It’s odd, though. I never used to lie, ever. But then-you.”
“The apple in the Garden of Eden?”
“Yes. Since the serpent tempted me, I’ve not been the same. I have sinned…”
Caroline was not prepared for the astonishing beauty of the Exposition at night. Great airy palaces were lit by a million electrical candles whose light turned the prosaic Missouri sky into a spectacle like nothing that she had ever seen before. In the course of the evening, partners had been deftly switched. She was now with John, dining at the French restaurant with Henry Adams and his niece, Abigail. Representative and Mrs. James Burden Day were dining at the German restaurant in the company of the two senators from Jim’s state, of whom one was very elderly indeed, and might do the proper thing and retire or die, leaving the place to Kitty’s husband, as Caroline tended to think of Jim in his official capacity. He was entirely the creation, so people thought, of the legendary Judge, his father-in-law. Caroline suspected that the truth might prove to be otherwise, but no one was about to put the matter to the test.
“I have never seen anything so beautiful…” Adams was ecstatic; Abigail was bored. Caroline was sexually satisfied. John was in despair-his clients had been of no use to him.
“Surely, Mont-St.-Michel and Chartres…” Caroline began.
“They are different. They evolved over centuries. But this is like the Arabian nights. Someone rubbed a lantern and said, a city of light on the banks of the Mississippi. And here it is, all round us.” Actually, all around them were huge contented-looking Americans of the heartland, gorging on French cuisine. Each contributing country had its own restaurant, with France, as always, in the lead.