VIII
He took her driving the next evening, that being the only way she could ever see the country. They followed the river drive, and a full moon was strewing its showers of light over the water; fireflies were flickering, and the world was lovely, as well as mysterious. Over in France the doughboys had begun their long-expected drive, and the newspapers were full of their exploits; which lent a strange quality to any happiness you felt — as if it were something you had no right to, and that might disappear while you held it in your hands.
“Gracyn,” said Lanny, “I've been thinking that if you're going to get a job this season, you ought to be in New York now, while the managers are getting their fall productions ready.”
“I know, Lanny; but I can't!”
“What I thought was, I'd ask my father to back you to the extent of a trip there. He saw your performance and liked it a lot.”
“Oh, Lanny!” The girl caught her breath. “Oh, I couldn't let you do that!”
“It wouldn't break him.”
“I know — but I haven't the right — ”
“You can call it a loan. Anybody starting in business borrows money and pays it back out of his earnings. You surely won't fail to earn something; and it would make me happy if I could help you.”
“Oh, Lanny, what a darling you are!”
“You'll do it, then?”
“How could I say no?”
“I haven't asked him, you understand; but he's never refused to do anything within reason.”
“Lanny, I'll work so hard — I'll have one reason more for making good!”
“I know you'll work; the chances are you'll work too hard and do yourself up.”
The road passed a wooded point, and came to an open spot with a tiny bay. “Oh, Lanny, how lovely!” whispered the girl. “Stop for a bit.”
They drew up by the roadside, as young couples were doing along ten thousand rivers and streams of America. They sat looking over the water, strewn with shimmering bright jewels; and Gracyn put her hand on Lanny's and murmured: “Lanny, you are the kindest, sweetest man I've ever known.”
“It's easy for me to be generous with money I don't have to earn,” said he.
She answered: “I don't mean only that. I mean a lot, lot more than that.”
He felt her hand trembling, and a strange feeling which he had learned to know began to steal over him. When she leaned toward him he put his arm about her. They sat so for quite a while; until at last the girl whispered: “Lanny, let me tell you how I feel.”
She waited, as if it were a question; he answered: “Yes, dear, of course.”
“I think you are the best person I've ever known, and I'll do anything I can to make you happy — anything in this world. You have my promise that I'll never ask anything of you, never make any claim upon you — never, never!”
So there was Lanny mixed up with the sex problem again. His father had said: “It's hard to say no.” Lanny found that it was impossible.
24
The World Well Lost
I
THERE had come a post card from Sergeant Jerry Pendleton in France. “We are ready. Everything fine. Watch our smoke!” And right after that the big news began to come in. The Americans hit the spearhead of the German advance on Paris, at a little village called Château-Thierry, difficult for doughboys to pronounce. The Americans furnished two divisions for the great attack at Soissons, which caught the Germans on the flank, and cut the supply lines of their advancing armies. The same fellows that Lanny had met and talked with; they had been training for a new kind of fighting, to attack and keep on attacking, and take machine-gun nests in spite of losses — and now they were doing it! In the few days of that battle the Germans sent in seven divisions to stop the First Division of the Americans, and when they failed, their leaders knew that the tide of the war had turned.
From that time on there was one battle that went on day and night for three months. The fifty thousand sergeants led their million and a quarter men, and the machine guns mowed some of them down and left them crumpled and writhing on the ground-but others got close, and threw their hand grenades and silenced the guns. After three days of such attacks, one of the battalions from Camp Devens, a thousand strong, came out with two hundred men unwounded. But they had taken the positions.
People read about these exploits with pride and exultation, or with shuddering and grief, according to their temperaments. Lanny, who knew more about war than anybody else he met, was of two moods in as many minutes. A poet had expressed his state of mind in alternating verses:
At the country club Lanny had met officers who were now in France, directing this all-summer and autumn battle, and he was proud of these stern, capable men and the job they were doing. As the poet had said:
A letter from Nina: “It is so dreadful, the way poor Rick has to suffer. I do not know how he can stand it. They are going to have to take out another piece of bone. Perhaps they ought to take the whole leg, but the doctors are not able to agree about it.” And then one from Beauty, with words of apology for the tear stains which marred it. These were the days when she was waiting in vain for some message from Marcel; she had to pass a still longer period, clinging to the hope that he might have been captured, and that she would get word through the organization in Switzerland which exchanged lists of prisoners.
One day there came in Lanny's mail a carefully wrapped package from France, and when he opened it, there was a charming little figure of a dancing man carved in wood. M. Pinjon, the gigolo, was back in his native village and wished to greet and thank his old friend. He didn't suggest that Lanny might interest some rich Americans in giving little dancing men as Christmas gifts; but of course Lanny knew how happy the poor cripple would be if this were done. Kind-hearted persons would take duties like this upon themselves — even while they knew how pathetically futile it was.
II
Gracyn Phillipson didn't take the trip to New York; at least not right away. The morning after her understanding with Lanny she received a letter from Walter Hayden. He had meant his praise, it appeared. He was at the town of Holborn, thirty or forty miles away, about to direct a show for the Red Cross ladies there. It was a war play, and had a “fat” part for a leading lady; the committee were dubious about their local talent, and Hayden had told them about his “find” in Newcastle. They couldn't pay any salary, but would guarantee her fifty dollars' expenses for two weeks if she cared to come. It would be a chance for her to have Hayden's direction in a straight dramatic role, and the experience might be very helpful to her. The girl was wild with delight, and phoned Lanny that she was leaving by the first train.
So now the youth had another art project to be absorbed in. When he finished his study of contracts and specifications for Budd fuses furnished to the United States navy, he did not go to the country club to play tennis, but motored to Holborn and took Gracyn Phillipson to dinner — an inexpensive procedure, since she was too excited to eat. Then he drove her to the hot little “opera house” where the rehearsals were held, and watched the work, and criticized and made suggestions, and drove home late at night. On Saturday afternoon he went and stayed overnight and on Sunday took her to the beach.