VII
Lanny had sent his mother a telegram upon his arrival in Brest, mentioning the exciting tidings that he had got a job. It meant that he could not come to Juan — at least, not until he had finished solving the problems of Europe. He wrote, suggesting that she should come to Paris.
Of course Beauty had to see her boy; and Robbie thought it would be a good thing if she left home for a while. He didn't take much stock in her efforts at rehabilitating broken Frenchmen; that was all right for women of a certain type, but not for Beauty, who was made for pleasure. Writing to Lanny, she protested that everything in Paris would be so dreadfully expensive; and Robbie answered in his usual way, by giving their son an extra check to send her. It was one of his ways of educating Lanny, helping him to realize how pleasant it was to have money, heigh-ho!
The mother was still clinging to the hope that she might hear some word about Marcel. She told herself that she could carry on her search better from Paris; if it brought no results, she could help to promote interest in his paintings, a labor of piety which intrigued heir mind. Lanny could assist her, now that he was meeting so many important and influential persons. In short, life once more began to stir in the bosom of Mabel Blackless, once Beauty Budd, and now Madame Detaze, veuve.
She ordered her trunks packed, and oversaw the job, exclaiming over the dowdiness of everything she owned; she hadn't bought a thing for years, and would simply have to do some shopping in Paris! Should she give up hope and put on black for Marcel, and how would she look? Leese and Rosine of course had views which they expressed freely. Beauty would repeat her injunctions for the care of Baby Marceline, now a little more than a year old and safely weaned; the two servants would renew their pledges, and Beauty would by turns be grieved at leaving her new baby and excited at the prospect of meeting her old one.
Lanny was at the Gare de Lyon, and they rushed together; then they held each other apart, to see what twenty months had done. “Oh, Lanny, you're grand! What a great tall thing you've grown!” And: “Oh, Beauty, you've been breaking the rules! There are ten pounds more of you!”
She blushed as she admitted her sins. “But I'll soon lose it here in Paris, with the prices I'm told they're charging.” They had lunch together at the hotel, and Beauty inspected the addition, which included fifty francs for a chicken. She exclaimed in horror, and said she would live on pear and endive salad from now on. One felt guilty to eat anything at all, with so many people starving all over Europe:
Such a myriad of things they had to talk about! Lanny had to tell about Esther and her family, and the rest of the Budd tribe, a hundred details that he had been too busy to write. He had to tell about Gracyn, that horrid creature, so Beauty adjudged her; there were women like that, and they filled a mother's heart with distress. Beauty inspected him anxiously for any signs that his life had been ruined; but he assured her that he was all right, he had learned a lot, he was wiser as well as sadder, and meant to live a strict ascetic life from now on, devoting himself to bringing peace to Europe. Beauty listened gravely; she had heard other men make such resolutions, but had rarely seen them kept.
She told him about the baby, how she looked and what she ate and the delightful sounds she made. She told him about the wounded men she had been visiting at Sept Chênes. “I don't know what I'm going to do with them, Lanny, now that the war is over — it's just like having a lot of relatives.” She told about Emily Chattersworth, whose château was still given up to mutilés. “She's living in town now, and you must go and see her — she can be so helpful to you and your professors — she knows everybody and likes to bring people together — that's really her forte, you know.”
“Don't bother,” smiled the youth. “My professors are meeting several times as many people as they want to.”
“Oh, but I mean the right ones, Lanny. That's the way to get things done here in France. Emily will arrange to take your Professor Alston direct to Clemenceau himself, and he can explain just how he thinks the peace ought to be settled.” It was going to be as simple as that!
VIII
President Wilson and his wife went shopping in Paris. She was a buxom lady who was devoted to him and took the best possible care of him, and wore in his honor a gorgeous purple gown and a hat with purple plumes. Everywhere they appeared there were ovations; the people of Europe rushed to manifest their faith in him, their hope, their adoration. It was something entirely spontaneous, unforeseen by the politicians and not a little disturbing to them. For this man talked about Democracy, and not merely before elections; he spoke as if he really believed in it — and these were dangerous times, when words were liable to explode, like the shells which were buried in the fields of France and went off in the faces of the peasants who tried to plow. This man talked about freedom of the seas which Britannia boasted of ruling; he talked about self-determination for those small peoples whom the statesmen of Europe were bent upon ruling.
President Wilson and his wife went to London, arriving on the day after Christmas, which the British call “Boxing Day.” Enormous, throngs welcomed them, and the government provided a royal banquet at Buckingham Palace, making it the most gorgeous spectacle ever seen in that land of pageantry. Britain was the only country left in Europe that could put on such a show. The empire of the Tsar was now a land of starving proletarians, and the realm of the Kaiser was ruled by a saddlemaker; but Britannia still had the money, and her field marshals and generals and admirals and lord mayors still had the costumes. Before this shining assemblage the lean Presbyterian professor stood in his plain black clothes, and talked about the rights of the people; also, he failed to tell the lords and masters of the realm that they had won the war, an offense which they wouldn't forget.
President Wilson and his wife returned to Paris, and he made a speech before the Chamber of Deputies, and failed to praise the heroism which France had displayed. It was hard for his hearers to understand that this was a peace man, who had been forced into war with bitter reluctance, and now had but one thought in his mind, to make such a calamity impossible for the future. He went to Italy, and the hungry and tormented people turned out in a demonstration which frightened the ruling classes. Everywhere it was the same throughout Europe, in defeated lands as well as in victorious ones; the peasants cut out newspaper pictures of this new redeemer and pinned them onto the walls of their huts and burned candles before them. In Vienna the children who were dying wholesale of the diseases of malnutrition smiled happily and said: “It will soon be all right; President Wilson is coming.” Never had a living man held so much power in his two hands; never did a living man have so many prayers said for him and to him.
Many among the staff of advisers had considered that it was a mistake for the President of the United States to come to Europe at this time. Professor Alston was among these; he didn't say much about it, wishing to be tactful, but Lanny knew what he thought, and why. If the President had remained in Washington, and had the proposals of the peace delegates submitted to him, his decisions would have come as from Mount Sinai; but when he descended into the arena, he would be just one more contestant, and would sacrifice his prestige and authority. He who had had no training in diplomacy would be pitted against men who had had little else since childhood. They knew a thousand arts of which he was ignorant; they would find out his weak points, they would browbeat him and weary him and trap him into unwise concessions.