"Why, Lanny, that’s nothing!" exclaimed Irma. "Less than forty thousand dollars."
"But what on earth would you do with it?"
"Wouldn’t you like to live in Paris and be able to entertain your friends?"
"But you’ve got one white elephant on your hands already!"
"Be sensible, darling, and face the facts. You don’t like Shore Acres, or the people who come to it. You want to live in France."
"But I’ve never asked for a palace!"
"You want your friends about you, and you want to do things for them. All your life you’ve taken it for granted that somebody will do the entertaining, and you enjoy the benefits. You’re delighted to go to Sept Chenes and meet intellectual and cultivated people. You hear famous musicians, you hear poets read their work —and apparently you think that kind of pleasure grows on trees, you don’t even have to pick the fruit, it comes already cut up in little cubes and served on ice! Hasn’t it occurred to you that Emily’s health is failing? And some day you won’t have your mother, or Sophie, or Margy—you’ll be dependent on what your wife has learned."
He saw that she had thought it all out, and he guessed that she had consulted the other ladies. Naturally, they would approve, because it would provide good fun for them. "You’ll be taking a heavy load on your shoulders," he objected, feebly.
"It won’t be so easy in a foreign country; but I’ll get help, and I’ll learn. It will be my job, just as it has been Emily’s."
"What will you do with Shore Acres?"
"Let’s try this place for a year. If we like it, perhaps we can buy it, and sell Shore Acres; or if mother wants to go on living there, she can cut down on the staff. If this depression goes on, they’ll be glad to work for their keep, and that’ll be fair."
"But suppose your income goes on dropping, Irma!"
"If the world comes to an end, how can anybody say what he’ll do! Anyhow, it can’t do us any harm to have a lot of friends."
VIII
It was a compromise she was proposing; she would live in France, as he desired, but she would live according to her standards. In order to stop her, he would have to say a flat no, and he didn’t have the right to say that. It was her money, and all the world knew it.
There was nothing very novel to Lanny Budd in the idea of living in Paris. He had spent a winter here during the Peace Conference, and another during the period of his vie a trois with Marie de Bruyne. Paris offered every kind of art and entertainment, and it was centrally situated; roads and cars had been so improved that you could reach London or Geneva or Amsterdam in a few hours. They could step into their car in the morning and be in Bienvenu by nightfall. "Really, it’ll be about the same as commuting," said Irma.
What astonished him was the zest with which she set to work, and the speed with which she put the job through. She was the daughter of J. Paramount Barnes, and all her life she had been used to hearing decisions made and orders given. As soon as Lanny gave his consent she seated herself at the telephone and put in a call for Jerry Pendleton in Cannes. "How’s business?" she asked, and when the familial cheery voice informed her that it was dead and buried, she asked if he would like to have a job. He answered that he would jump for it, and she said: "Jump for the night express, and don’t miss your hold."
"But darling!" objected Lanny. "He doesn’t know anything about running a palace!"
"He’s honest, he’s lived in France for fifteen years, and employed some help. It won’t take him long to learn the ropes."
When the red-headed ex-lieutenant from Kansas arrived, she put it up to him. He would become steward, or perhaps Controleur-General, like Herr Meissner in Stubendorf. "Put on lots of side," she advised, "and be taken at your own valuation." He would engage a first-class major domo and a butler who would know what was done and what wasn’t. He would be paid enough so that he could have his own car, and run down to see his family now and then.
Jerry Pendleton had once undertaken to tutor Lanny Budd without any preparation, and now he was taking another such chance. No time even to read a book on the duties of a Controleur-General! Go right to work; for the "season" was soon to begin, and Irma wanted what she wanted when she wanted it. The elaborate inventory of the contents of the palace was made and checked and signed on every page; the lease was signed, the money paid, and the keys delivered. Emily’s butler had a brother who was also in the profession, and knew everything there was to know about Paris society. Also he knew servants, enough for an emergency staff, and they came and took off the dust-covers and got things ready with American speed.
Irma and her prince consort and her Controleur-General moved into their new home, and it was but a few hours before the newspapers had got word of it, and the doorbell was ringing and the flashlight bulbs of the photographers exploding. Lanny saw that his wife was once more getting her money’s worth; they were back in cafe society, with the spotlight centered upon them. Paris was going to have a new hostess, a famous one. The marble steps of the palace were worn by the feet of chauffeurs and lackeys leaving calling cards with distinguished names on them, and the side entrance bell was ringing to announce the presence of bijoutiers and couturiers and marchands de modes.
Irma said: "Your mother must come and help us." So Lanny wrote at once, and that old war-mare said "Ha, ha!" and scented the battle afar off. It would have been a mortal affront to invite one mother-in-law and not the other, so Irma sent a cablegram to Shore Acres, and that older and more experienced charger dropped all her plans and took the first steamer. Even Emily came to town for a few days, bringing her calling lists with the secret symbols. Feathers sat by her side with a stenographer’s notebook, collecting pearls of information which dropped from the lips of the most esteemed of Franco-American hostesses.
In short, Lanny Budd found himself in the midst of a social whirlwind; and it would have been cruelly unkind of him not to like it. Once more the ladies were in charge of his life, and what they considered proper was what he did. He listened to their talk and he met the people they brought for him to meet; if he wanted to play the piano it had to be done at odd moments between social engagements; while, as for sitting down in a splendid library and burying himself in a book—well, it was just too selfish, too solitary, too inconsiderate of all those persons who wanted to pay their attentions to the lessee of so much magnificence.
IX
The election results had given a tremendous jolt to the conservative elements in France. The party of Jesse Blackless had gained only two seats, but the party of Leon Blum had gained seventeen, while the "Radicals" had gained forty-eight. To be sure that word didn’t mean what it meant in the United States; it was the party of the peasants and the small business men, but it was expected to combine with the Socialists, and France would have a government of the left, badly tainted with pacifism, and likely to make dangerous concessions to the Germans. The groups which had been governing France, the representatives of big industry and finance capital, popularly known as the mur d’argent, the "wall of money," were in a state of great alarm.