Beauty Budd had very few pretensions to wit, and still fewer to erudition, but she possessed a treasure appreciated in any drawing room — she was easy to look at. She also possessed a full supply of womanly tact, and was naturally kind, and didn't quarrel with other ladies or try to take away their men. The weaker sex was supposed to do little talking at a salon; as among the fowls, it was the males who displayed the gorgeous plumage and made the loud noises. The company did not break up into groups, as was the custom in English and American drawing rooms. There would be a super-celebrity who would set the theme and do most of the expounding; the other celebrities would say their say, and the function of the hostess was to supervise and shepherd the conversation. The other ladies listened, and did not interrupt unless they were quite sure they had something supremely witty that could be uttered in a sentence or two. Generally they thought of it too late, and for that misfortune the French had a phrase, esprit de l'escalier, that is to say, staircase wit.
Of course it was not possible for an American woman, however wealthy, to have a really first-class salon in France. The fashionables and the intellectuals of that land were clannish, and it took a full lifetime to learn the subtleties of their differentiations. There were royalist salons and republican salons, Catholic salons and free-thought salons, literary and art salons, each its own little world, with but slight interest in foreigners. However, an American could provide a way for her fellow-countrymen to meet such Frenchmen as were international-minded, and Mrs. Emily, a handsome and stately lady, was conscientious about performing this service.
She would give dinner parties, also in the French manner, the hostess sitting midway between the ends of the table, putting the most important guest directly across from her, and then shading off to persons of least importance, who sat at the ends. There was a French phrase for that too, le bout de table. At dinner parties you did not chat with the person on either hand, but listened to those whose importance had been indicated by their seating. One of these was privileged to hold forth for a few minutes on any subject, and then he was expected to let the hostess indicate another performer. A cultivated people had been centuries evolving this routine, and to them it was extremely important.
II
There wasn't much place for children in Les Forêts, and they were rarely invited. But Mrs. Emily had met Lanny on the Riviera, and knew that he could be counted upon to wipe his feet before treading the heavy red velvet carpets which covered the entrance hall and went up the central stairway. He would stand for a long time looking at a painting in silence, and if he asked a question it would be an intelligent one. He never interrupted the conversation of his elders, and had listened to so many conversations that he was almost an elder himself. Mrs. Emily had suggested to Beauty that he might come and stay until they both were ready to return to Juan-les-Pins.
So here was Lanny, playing tennis with the children of the steward who managed the estate, swimming in the lake, riding the fine, high-strung horses, playing not too loudly upon a sonorous piano, and reading in a library where a pale and black-clad scholar had spent a lifetime cataloguing and watching over treasures. Here was a person worth listening to, and glad to have an audience. A week with M. Priedieu meant as much to Lanny Budd as a term in college. The old gentleman helped to orientate him in the world of books, making known to him the writers from whom he could find out about other writers; it was like giving him a map of the forests, so that he could go out and explore for himself.
Another educational influence was Mrs. Emily's mother, who was history. She had been a “Baltimore belle,” and told how beautiful she used to be and how the beaux had swarmed about her. Now she was in her mid-seventies, and had lovely golden curls which looked quite natural; Lanny was surprised when his mother told him how once the sprightly old lady had rocked with laughter and thrown her curls into her plate of soup. She was painted all pink and white over her many wrinkles, and was automatically driven to exercise charm upon anything that came along in trousers.
Lanny fell under her spell, and she told him how her daughter Emily had been born amid the sounds of battle; the Fifth New York regiment, marching through Baltimore on its way to defend Washington at the outbreak of the American Civil War, had fired upon the citizens. “That fixes her age at fifty-three, so she doesn't like to have it told on her, and you must keep it a secret; but Emily herself won't be able to keep it much longer unless she consents to dye her hair. Dear me, how I do rattle on!” said Mrs. Sally Lee Sibley; and she added: “What a hideous and ruinous thing that war was, and how lucky we are who don't have to see such things!”
Lanny was moved to tell how yesterday he had heard Prince Skobelkov remark that Russia ought to bring war on right now, because his country was ready and could never be more so. The old lady looked at the boy in horror and whispered: “Oh, no, no! Don't let anybody say such a thing! Oh, what wicked people!” Mrs. Sally Lee Sibley lived in Europe because it was her fate, but privately she hated it.
III
Of course a half-grown boy was not invited to a salon or to formal dinner parties; but there were house guests, and callers in great numbers, and Lanny met them, and listened to conversations about the state of Europe, in which persons who were on the inside of affairs talked freely, being among those who had a right to know. There was a Russian military mission in Paris, and the famous general, Prince Skobelkov, was a member of it; he found time to motor out and have tea, even in the midst of a world-shaking crisis. Also the French Senator Bidou-Lascelles, who said, in American poker language: “Germany is trying to use Austria to bluff Russia, and this will go on indefinitely unless we call the bluff.” The Prince assented, and added: “Our official information is that Austria is unprepared, and will prove a weak ally.”
Lanny listened, and thought that he didn't like these two old men. The Russian was large, red-faced, and tightly laced up, and spoke French explosively. The senator was baldheaded and paunchy, with a white imperial that waggled somewhat absurdly; he was an ardent Catholic, and fought for his Church party in the Senate, but to Lanny he didn't seem religious, but rather a little gnome plotting dreadful things. Lanny recollected the beautiful Austrian country through which he had passed, the mountain cottages with steep roofs to shed the snow, and the inns with fancy gilded signs. He thought of Kurt Meissner, and his brothers who were in the German army. Kurt was to come to Paris in a few days, to meet his “rubber” uncle and return home with him. Lanny had thought of having him invited to Les Forêts, but decided that it wouldn't do, with people voicing opinions like these.
Mrs. Emily had thrown her estate open for a charity bazaar, and booths had been set up, decorated with bunting and huge quantities of flowers. Everybody donated things to be sold, and the crowds came and bought them. It appeared that there were vast numbers of persons who had money enough to wear fashionable clothes, but couldn't get into the right society. Here they would have a chance, not merely to look at the gratin, as the inner circle was called, but even to speak to them.
It was a scheme devised to turn the weaknesses of human nature to a useful purpose. There were “cabbage patches” in Paris, too, and the poor who lived in them sometimes fell ill, and had to be cared for in hospitals, and this was the established way to raise the money. The most aloof of the great ladies of society offered themselves as bait, duchesses and countesses of the old nobility putting themselves on exhibition, and you might have the honor of addressing them. But you weren't to expect to have it cheaply, for the prices were graded according to those laws of precedence which ruled at dinner parties. A cousin of the Russian Tsar was in charge of the booth where Mrs. Emily's orchids were sold, and for the commonest of them you would have to part with a hundred-franc note, or twenty American dollars. Along with it you would get a charming smile from a regal person, and if you paid double the price asked, she might even hold out a hand to be kissed.