When they were alone, the child would start in on his mother. “Beauty, what is taffeta, and what do you mean by cutting it on the bias? What are penguins and why are they like French politicians? What were the Dreyfusards, and why did the abbe get so excited when he talked about them?” It was hard on a mother who had developed to a high degree the art of taking part in conversation without bothering too much about details. With Lanny she had to get things right, because he would remember and bring them up again.
He had developed at a very early age the habit of cherishing some profound remark that he had heard one of his elders make, and getting it off in other company. Of course it would cause a sensation; and of course an active-minded child did not fail to enjoy this, and to repeat the performance. He had the advantage that he was operating behind a screen; for the elders seldom realize how shrewd children are, how attentively they listen, and how quickly they seize upon whatever is of advantage to them. The elders would say anything in a little boy's presence — and then later they would be astonished to find that he knew about such matters!
The city of Cannes lay only a few miles from his home, and the mother would betake herself there for shopping, and to have her charms attended to. Lanny, having promised never to go away with anybody, would find himself a seat on a street bench, or in a sidewalk cafe; and sooner or later there would be someone taking an interest in a bright lad with wavy brown hair, lively brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and a shirt of gray oxford cloth open at the throat.
In this way he had met, during the winter before he went to Hellerau, Colonel Sandys Ashleigh-Sandys — do not pronounce the y's — late of His Majesty's Royal Highlanders in the Indian Northwest. The colonel had white mustaches and a complexion like yellow parchment; it was trouble with his liver. He wore a linen suit, comfortably cut. A member of the exclusive “British colony,” he would have turned away from any grown person who ventured to address him without a proper introduction; but when the tables were crowded and a small boy invited him to a seat, he did not think it necessary to decline. When the boy began to chat with all the grace of a man of the world, the colonel was inwardly amused and outwardly the soul of courtesy.
Lanny chose to talk about the latest popular novel he was halfway through. The old martinet with parasites in his liver questioned him about his reading, and found that this benighted lad had never, read a novel of Scott, had never even heard of Dickens, and all he knew about the plays of Shakespeare was the incidental music of A Midsummer Night's Dream, written by a Jewish fellow. Lanny asked so many questions, and was so serious in his comments, that before they parted the colonel offered to send him a one-volume edition of the poet which he happened to be able to spare. One condition would be imposed — the lad must promise to read every word in the book.
Lanny had no idea of the size of that promise. He gave it, and also his name and address, and a couple of days later there arrived by the post an elegant tome weighing several pounds. It was the sort of work which is meant to be set upon a drawing-room table and dusted every day but never opened. Lanny kept his pledge literally, he began at the title page and spent a month reading straight through, in a state of tense excitement. He wore his mother out at mealtimes, telling her about the lovely ladies who were accused of dreadful crimes which they had not committed. Just what the crimes were supposed to be was vague in Lanny's mind, and how was his mother to answer his questions? What did a man mean when he said he knew a hawk from a handsaw, and what were maidenheads and how did you break them?
Presently there was Lanny making himself swords out of laths and helmets out of newspapers, and teaching fishermen's children to fence and nearly poke one another's eyes out! Shouting: “Zounds!” and “Avaunt, traitor!” and “Lay on, Macduff!” down on the beach! Spouting poetry all over the place, like an actor — maybe he might turn out to be that — how was any woman to know what she had brought into the world? It was evident to her that this child's imagination was going to carry him to strange places and make him do uncomfortable things.
III
Lanny and Kurt, arriving at Cannes, parted company before they left the train. The German boy was to be met by his aunt; and this widow of the Court-Counselor von und zu Nebenaltenberg was a person with old-fashioned notions who would probably disapprove of Americans on general principles. The situation turned out to be even more difficult, for the aunt knew or professed to know all about “that Budd woman,” as she called Beauty, and was shocked that her nephew had met such a person. She wouldn't say what it was — just one word: “Unschicklich!”
Kurt asked no questions. “Mrs. Budd has gone to Scotland for the shooting season,” he remarked, casually. He sat erect in the stiff chair, facing the meager, severe old lady, telling her the news about the many members of their family. He ate a sound German luncheon of rye bread with slices of Leberwurst and Schweizerkäse, followed by a small Apfelkuchen and a cup of weak tea with milk. When the two had finished this meal, the aunt laid out the proper portions of food for her solitary maid, and then opened a cedar chest which stood between the windows of the dining room, and stowed all the remaining food therein, and carefully locked the chest with one of a bunch of keys which she carried at her waist. “You can't trust these native servants with anything,” said the Frau Doktor Hofrat. Her husband had been dead for ten years, but she still wore black for him and of course carried his titles.
However, she was a woman of culture, and in due course asked about Hellerau, and Kurt told her. She was prejudiced against Jaques-Dalcroze because he had a French name and beard; but Gluck's music was echt deutsch, so the Frau Doktor Hofrat asked questions and wished that she might have seen the Festspiel. Only after Kurt had awakened her curiosity to the utmost did the budding diplomat mention that his American boy friend had a real gift, and might assist him to give a Dalcroze demonstration. He was a very well-bred and polite boy, Kurt assured his aunt; he was only thirteen, and probably knew nothing about the “Unschicklichkeit” of his mother. Furthermore, he was an artist, or going to be, and one should not judge persons of that sort by ordinary standards. Consider Wagner, for example. Concerning even Beethoven there had been rumors . . .
By such insidious devices Kurt won his aunt's permission to invite Lanny Budd for tea. A telegram was dispatched, and the Budd chauffeur drove Lanny over at the proper hour. He entered a plain, immaculate apartment, clicked his heels, bowed from the waist, and apologized for his German — which really wasn't so bad, because he had had two German tutors, each for several months. He ate only one tiny sandwich and one cooky, and declined a second cup of tea. Then while Kurt played the piano he gave demonstrations of what the Dalcroze people called “plastic counterpoint”; the elderly widow played folk songs which Lanny did not know, and he listened, and invented movements for them, and made intelligent comments while he did so. The Frau Doktor Hofrat did not tell him that she had once lost a little boy who had brown hair and eyes like his; but she invited him to come again, and gave her consent for Kurt to visit his home.
So all was well, and the youngsters were turned loose to enjoy life in their own fashion. The luncheon that Kurt had with Lanny wasn't any frugal German meal. Leese prepared a mostele, an especially good fish which the boys caught; also an omelet with fresh truffles, and then fresh figs with cream and cake; that was the way they lived at the Budds', and any peasant woman was happy to serve two handsome lads who had such good appetites and paid so many compliments to the food.