She talked a great deal and would certainly bore him while motoring over Spain. But she had sense enough to let a man alone if he asked it. If Lanny said he wanted to read, all right, he could go off in a corner of the garden and stay half a day. If Marcel had wanted to paint, or Robbie to play poker, that too was all right. If Kurt could only realize that the war was over, and get his musical instruments together and go on with his work, Beauty would be content to hear him tootling and tinkling all day. She had learned her formula from Emily: Kurt was a composer, and in order to write for any instrument you had to know its range, what fingerings were easy, what were impossible, and so on.
The day that Kurt produced his Opus I, he would become for Beauty the greatest composer in the world; she would take up that composition and fight for it as she had fought for Marcel's art, and for the selling of munitions. She would inquire around and find out who was the topmost conductor of the hour, and somehow she would manage to be in his neighborhood and have him invited to tea. Maybe he would know what was up or maybe he wouldn't, but, anyway, he would hear Kurt's Opus I, and soon it would be performed by a great symphony orchestra, and Beauty would see to it that all the critics were there, and that they met the crème de la crème of Paris or London society. Kurt would be dressed for the occasion, and presented to everybody — or would he? Maybe he'd be eccentric, like Marcel, despising smart society, wanting to hide himself! If so, Beauty would fall on her knees and tell him that she was a crude and cheap person, that he might have it his way — any way in the world, so long as he didn't go to war again! (Lanny, living over those days of anguish with his stepfather at Juan-les-Pins!)
Now it was Kurt who was going to be stepfather. What an odd thing! Of course Kurt had always taken the attitude of an elder and Lanny had thought of him as a mentor. As they grew older, fifteen months' difference in their ages would matter less; but probably Kurt would always know what he wanted to do, whereas Lanny might never be sure. Lanny had imaginary whimsical conversations with his friend, in which they adjusted themselves to the trick which fate had played upon them. Anyhow, they wouldn't be jealous of each other; and they would have lots of music in the house! Lanny began to reflect that he ought to concentrate upon that great art and try to make something of himself with Kurt's help.
VIII
The German delegation was bombarding the conference with notes, protesting against the terms of the “monstrous document,” as the treaty was called by the President of the German Republic. They said that it was impossible of fulfillment; that in failing to fix the amount of the indemnity the Allies made it impossible for Germany to obtain credit anywhere; that in taking all her colonies and her ships, and requiring her yards to make new ships for the Allies, they were making it impossible for her to have any trade and so condemning millions of people to starvation. The better to continue this bombardment, the Germans brought in a special train with linotype machines and printing presses, and set about preparing a volume of their own, a “counter-proposal.” Clemenceau replied with cold rejection of most of the German notes, and the experts and secretaries and translators worked at preparing ammunition to repel this new kind of bombardment.
It became Lanny's duty to take the files referring to Upper Silesia, and help the staff to digest them all over again, and prepare answers to the strenuous arguments of the German delegation, that this province was overwhelmingly German, and that giving it to the Poles was merely a move of power politics, to deprive Germany of coal and manufacturing power. A lot of extra work fell upon Lanny's shoulders, because Alston was giving so much time to discussing whether it was his duty to resign his position as a public protest against what he felt was a breach of faith with Germany.
There were signs of wavering among those responsible for the drastic terms of the treaty, and Lanny had the exciting idea that by some stroke of superdiplomacy he might be able to save the castle and district of Stubendorf for Kurt and his family. At any rate, Lanny would make special mention of it in the data he got together; he would underscore the name if it occurred; he would make notes on the margin of reports. When he had a chance to talk with his chief he told how he had visited that beautiful country — and assuredly every man, woman, and child that he had seen was German.
Professor Alston shook his head sadly. Lanny wasn't telling him anything new; it was just such blunders which were tormenting the conscience of the Americans, and of some Britons, too. But what could they do? It might be possible to persuade the Big Four to grant a plebiscite for the bulk of Upper Silesia, but Stubendorf lay too far to the east, and was surely going to the Poles. Paderewski, President of the new Polish Republic, had come to Paris, to fight for every foot of territory he could get, and the French were backing him. As Robbie had so carefully explained, this new republic was a French creation, to be armed with weapons manufactured by Zaharoff.
Lanny had been too busy to return to the mansion on the Avenue Hoche; but every now and then he would come upon another strand of the web of that busy old spider. Right in the midst of the bright dream of saving Kurt's home came news that gave everybody at the Crillon a poke in the solar plexus: a Greek expedition had landed at Smyrna and taken the city, with British and French warships supporting them, and — here was the part which the Americans could hardly believe — the battleship Arizona and five United States destroyers lending aid! The French took the harbor forts, the British and Italians held the suburbs, while the Greeks invaded the center of the city and slaughtered the Turkish inhabitants.
Turkey was going to be dismembered, of course. The British and French were going to quarrel over the oil. The Italians were going to hold some of the islands. The Greeks were going to get Smyrna, as a reward for sending troops to Odessa to help fight the Bolsheviks. But what was America getting out of it, and why were American warships assisting against Turks, upon whom we had never declared war?
These developments had been foreseen by Robbie Budd, and Lanny now passed his information on to Alston and others of the staff. Zaharoff was a Greek, and hatred of Turkey was, next to money-making, the great passion of his life. Zaharoff controlled Lloyd George through the colossal armaments machine which had saved Britain. Zaharoff controlled Clemenceau through Schneider-Creusot — to say nothing of Clemenceau's brother and son. The Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor had practically an official status at the Peace Conference, and was now getting himself a port for the future conquest of Turkey and the taking of its oil. America was to accept a mandate for Constantinople, which meant sending an army and a navy to keep the Bolsheviks shut up in the Black Sea; also a mandate for Armenia, which meant blocking them off from the Mosul oil fields. Lloyd George had a map showing all this — young Fessenden had revealed the fact to Lanny without quite realizing its importance.
One fact Lanny failed to grasp — what he was doing to himself by talk such as this in the Crillon. His mother was fondly imagining that he might have a diplomatic career, something so distinguished and elegant. He himself was finding it thrilling to be behind the wings and at least on speaking terms with the great actors. But he forgot about the whispering gallery, the busy note-takers and filers of cards. Zaharoff had tried to hire him as a spy. Did he imagine that Zaharoff had failed to hire others? Did he imagine that one could sit in with the Alston malcontents and discuss the project of resigning, and not have all that noted down in one or many black-books?