The actual assets, then, were $250,000 of the $300,000, and if the stock could be called 'watered' at all, since they were allowing for the experience and influence of Myron alone, it was only to the extent of $50,000. Myron calculated that it would cost $220,000 to build a hundred-and-twenty room hotel and lay out the grounds and lake shore, and $80,000 for furnishing and equipment and losses until they should begin to make a profit. It was agreed that they would obtain a $50,000 mortgage, but not until the building should be finished. Myron was against shoestring methods, and Dick Pye more or less agreed.
(Actually, of course, the building, furnishings and reserve against loss took $40,000 more than had been expected, and the mortgage had to be increased, but their friend and adviser, Colonel Ormond L. Westwind, took care of all that.)
Myron had to train as his successor in the management of the Pye-Charian Hotels a newcomer from Chicago. Jimmy Shanks, who had hoped for the place and who suspected that Myron had advised against him--'which I did, but the damn fool has no right to go around saying I did!' Myron confided to Alex--was not pleased. But Jimmy was no cultured and childish Carlos Jaynes. He was friendlier and jollier and more uproarious with Myron than ever, and much more dangerous.
He had to see the European inns and restaurants before he approved the architects' plans or let them build one cement-form for the Inn. He had to. He was going to combine with American tradition everything in European hotel-practice that could be acclimated here. Pye and Charian agreed to his taking three months in Europe, in the spring of 1926, but at his own expense.
Europe!
He was going to Europe! Going to see all its renowned historical sights and beauties, such as the Savoy, the Embassy Club, the Smithson & Batty Hotel Furnishings Co., the Café Royal, Simpson's, the Cheshire Cheese, Foyot's, Voisin's, the Paris Ritz and Crillon and Meurice, a bottle of Vouvray, Ciro's, the International Wall Tapestry Cie., the Chambertin vineyard, the Tour d'Argent, the Adlon, the Stephanie, the Frankfort-a-M., Wurst Gesellschaft, the Beau Rivage of Lausanne, the Villa D'Este, the Albergo Russia of Rome, the Royal Augustan Antipasto Exportation Company, the Grand of Stockholm--everything in Europe that mattered. He might even have time for Westminster Abbey, Napoleon's Tomb, Pompeii, and an art gallery.
The passionate pilgrimage!
He had his plans quite ready before he told Effie May, on a February evening at home in Mt. Vernon. He was jubilant about it, and he wound up, 'We'll simply have one whale of a good time, to say nothing of learning a whole lot, and if you don't want to chase around to all the hotels and so on that I'll have to see, you can stay in Paris and Rome.'
But she looked doubtful. She did not say 'Won'erful.' She hesitated, 'Could we take Luke?'
'Not awfully well, and I don't think he'd enjoy it, moving so fast--get pretty tired, a kid of nine.'
'I couldn't leave him for three whole months--more than three, with the steamer.'
'Well, I'll try to work it out so we can take him, if you feel we ought to. He could stay in Paris with you, I guess. There's a lot of things he'd enjoy seeing.'
'But . . .'
'Don't you want to go, pie?'
'I guess I do. Europe! But . . .'
He saw, beyond escape, that she was agitated by the fear of losing her familiar security, the fear of the unknown and probably hostile. He was wretched. He did not want to draw away from her; he had no liking whatever for the matrimonial experiments of the day. Experimentation in business was enough for him, in which he was not notably inferior to the biologists or explorers who flirted with every new concept in biology or jungle-piercing but were conservative as boiled codfish in religion and politics and love. He wanted Europe less for himself than for the egotistic utter unselfishness of seizing it in his two hands and showing it to her.
'But you had a great time out of going to Bermuda!' he said.
'Yes, I know. But I was young then. And I didn't have any responsibilities--a house and a child and all. And . . . Oh, probably I'd have a fine time, once I got there and got used to it. But your planning to go in just three weeks--three weeks--oh, I couldn't possibly get ready as quick as that--a trunk and dresses and underclothes and reading it up and all--I couldn't do it!'
'But, honey, they still sell dresses in the Old Country!'
'Oh, no, no, no! I couldn't do it!' He saw that she was becoming actively terrified. 'You run over by yourself, and Luke and I will go with you some time when you can make a longer stay, and when he's older.'
'Sure, sure, lamb, whatever you'd like! Play game of pinochle to-night?'
He wouldn't go at all then. Rats! He could get all he needed out of books and magazine articles. Just for once, he scolded himself, why not do something for Effie--the poor kid, buried here with nothing to amuse her!
He did not listen to himself. He had to go. He could do no other.
He was on the promenade deck of the S.S. Duilio, to sail for Naples.
At a cry of 'All ashore that's going ashore!' he said tremulously to Effie May and Alec Monlux, 'I guess you'll have to be getting off. I wish you were going. It won't be any fun without you two to cuss and discuss with. Be good, you two, and don't take any wooden money. Oh, Lord, I do wish you were going! Why don't you just get carried off accidentally on purpose? Well, guess you better start!' He kissed Effie, not as a husband, as he had done of late years, but with a real kiss, overwhelmingly conscious of her lips, and fretfully he led her toward the gang-plank.
He wondered afterward if he hadn't hurried her a bit. Still, it was just as well; it was only another half-hour before the gang-plank slid across to the pier, cutting off America for ever.
The great steamer incredibly began to move--only it seemed on that steel immensity, that it was the pier that was moving. He waved tirelessly to Effie and Alec, standing out in the crowd as though they were each of them twice as big as the others. He loved them! Who had so understanding a wife, so loyal a friend? And it pleased him that good old Jimmy Shanks, though he could not stay, had dashed down to say good-bye and bring a box of cigars.
Now the end of the pier was moving backward from the steamer. He could not make out Effie and Alec. He was suddenly desolated with loneliness, with a fear that he would never see them again, with a speculation as to whether he was not a fool to leave his familiar work and to go thus pretentiously spying into foreign ways that he would never understand.
He was so lonely that he went to bed early--and slept beautifully, for nine hours; his longest sleep, he remembered, for he did accurately remember such things, since he had been down with the 'flu, before his marriage.
Next morning he sent his business card to the chief steward.
All the rest of the crossing, he was viewing refrigerator-rooms, electric grills, the decoration of the suites, the preparation of menus by the chef and chief steward, the stewards' quarters, the choice and making of the sandwiches for the ten-o'clock evening trays, the storage of linen. He was busy and happy, and only occasionally did he remind himself that he must be lonely. He took time to look at Gibraltar, but he really did not have time to look, as he had planned, at the bridge, the captain, or the Atlantic Ocean.
He had written to Luciano Mora with a good deal of reserve. After all, Luciano wasn't just a Westward room-clerk any more, but manager of the lordly Hotel Pastorale in Naples, and probably he was nibbled to death by guests whom he had known in New York, just as Myron had been pestered by clients who, because they had once seen him at Connecticut Inn or Tippecanoe Lodge, expected to get a couple of floors free.