Пользователь - WORLDS END

3

Playground of Europe

I

BEAUTY stayed a couple of weeks, and so did Robbie, with the result that Lanny's life became what the newspapers call one continuous round of social gaieties. Beauty gave a tennis party, with afternoon tea, and a row of fashionable ladies decorating the sidelines. She gave a dinner party, with dancing on the loggia, and Venetian lanterns hanging, and an orchestra from Cannes. When they were not having or preparing things like these, they were motoring to the homes of friends up and down the coast, for motorboat races, or bridge, or fireworks, or whatever it might be.

Lanny had his part in these events. People who had heard about "Dalcroze" would ask for a demonstration, and he would oblige them without having to be begged. Lady Eversham-Watson put up her ivory and gold lorgnette and drawled: "Chawming!" and the Baroness de la Tourette lifted her hands with a dozen diamonds and emeralds on them and exclaimed: "Ravissant/" - all exactly as Lanny had foreseen. This attention and applause did not spoil him, because it was his plan to take up the role of teacher, and here was a beginning. He liked to please people, and everybody loved him for it; or at any rate they said they did, and Lanny took the world for the gay and delightful thing it strove so hard to appear.

It was a world of people who had money. Lanny had always taken it for granted that everybody had it. He had never known any poor people; or, to be more exact, he had never known about their poverty. The servants worked hard, but they were well paid and had plenty to eat and enjoyed working in the rich homes, knowing the rich people and gossiping about their ways. The Provencal peasants partook of nature's bounty, and were independent and free-spoken. The fishermen went to sea and caught fish; they had done that all their lives, and liked to do it, and were healthy, and drank wine and sang and danced. If now and then one was hurt, or lost his boat, a collection would be taken, and Lanny would tell Beauty about it and she would contribute.

The rich people had the function of exhibiting elegance and grace to the world, and the Cфte d'Azur was a place set apart for that performance. It was the winter playground of Europe; the wealthy and fashionable came from all over the world and either built themselves homes or stayed in luxurious hotels, dressing in the latest fashions and displaying themselves on waterfront parade grounds such as the Boulevard de la Croisette in Cannes and the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. They danced and played baccarat and roulette, golf and tennis; they motored and sailed, and ate arid drank in public, and lay about on the beaches under gaily striped umbrellas. Photographers took pictures of them, and newspapers and magazines all over the world paid high prices for them, and so the exhibition of elegance had become a large-scale business.

The ladies who lent their charms to this parade were spoken of as professional beauties, and they took their profession with the same seriousness as a physician takes the healing of bodies or a priest the saving of souls. It was an exacting occupation and left its devotees little time to think about anything else; during the exhibition periods, known as "seasons," they made it a rule to change their costumes four times a day, thus keeping the cameramen on the jump; during the "off seasons" they hardly got a chance to recuperate, because they had to spend their time planning with couturiers and marchands de modes and others to keep them at the head of the next procиssion.

It would seem as if a woman by the name of Beauty Budd had been especially cut out for such a career. And she might have had it, but for the fact that she was so poor. All she had was this home, and a thousand dollars a month which Robbie allowed her. He was strict with her; had made her promise not to incur debts, and never to gamble unless it was a business matter, with Robbie himself taking part. Of course you couldn't take that too literally; she had to play bridge, and couldn't very well insist upon paying cash for the clothes she ordered - the makers would have thought there was something wrong with her.

Thus in the view of Lanny Budd the meaning of "being poor" was that his lovely mother was outclassed in the race for attention. She would never be listed as one of the "ten best-dressed women of Paris." Fortunately she was of a happy disposition and did not let these hardships mar her life; she learned to make a joke of them, and also a virtue. She would talk about her unwillingness to "pay the price," a remark which some of her friends might have resented as a reflection upon themselves.

But these were matters beyond Lanny's understanding as yet. He would try to console his mother. "I'm glad you're poor. If you weren't, I wouldn't see even a little of you!"

She would hug him, and tears would come into the lovely blue eyes. "You're the best thing in the whole world, and I'm a foolish woman ever to think about anything else!"

"That's the way I'd like it!" Lanny would grin.

II

The reason why Robbie stayed so long on this trip was that he had another deal on, and Beauty was helping him. That was an aspect of their relationship which Lanny had learned about, and in which he also took part according to his abilities. Customers had to be met "socially," something far more effective than mere business acquaintanceship. In the latter case they would be thinking only about money, but in the former they would like you; at any rate they would pretend they did, and you would try to make it real. You had to "entertain" them, and for this purpose what could be more helpful than a woman with the charms of Beauty Budd? For this well-recognized part of the selling of munitions Robbie paid generously.

The Russian Minister of War would be planning to visit Paris with his wife. Robbie had scouts who kept him posted, and he would telegraph Beauty, who would at once inquire among her friends and find someone who knew either the minister or his wife, and would invite them down for a few days to warm their old bones. Beauty would meet them and make an engagement for tea, and wire Robbie, who would come in a shiny new car and take the tired old couple motoring, and show them the Corniche road, and maybe let them have a fling in the Casino at Monte Carlo.

Robbie's agents would have provided him with a regular dossier about such guests, including their tastes and their weaknesses. Beauty would have several duchesses and countesses at the tea party, and when the minister took his seat at the gaming table, Robbie would slip him a bundle of thousand-franc notes and tell him laughingly to take a "flier" for him. The old gentleman would do so, and if he lost Robbie would tell him to forget it, and if he won he would forget it without being told. Later, when Robbie would tell him news about the marvelous new sub-machine gun which Budd's were putting on the market, the minister would be deeply interested and would make a date for Robbie to demonstrate it in St. Petersburg.

When Robbie was leaving to keep that date, he would say to Beauty: "I can't motor to St. Petersburg. I'd get stuck like Napoleon in the snow." Yes, there was snow in Russia, impossible as it might seem in Juan-les-Pins, where everybody lay around on the beach absorbing sunshine. "That old car of yours is beginning to look shabby," he would add. "You better take mine. But don't let anybody swindle you on the old one; you ought to get five or six thousand francs for it at least." If Beauty protested that he was too generous, Robbie had a formula: "It goes on the expense account."

A marvelous phenomenon, the expense account of a munitions salesman, which could be stretched to include both his business and his pleasures. It included the newspaper man who brought the tip, and the detective who prepared the dossier. It included the car, and the chauffeur, and the gambling losses. It included the tea party and, strange to say, it might even include some of the duchesses and countesses - those who were so important that it was an honor for a Russian cabinet minister to meet them, instead of for them to meet a Russian cabinet minister.

Such subtle distinctions you had to know thoroughly if you wanted to land contracts. The great ladies knew their own value and the value of the service expected. If it was to get the wife and daughter of an American millionaire presented at the Court of St. James's, that might be worth a thousand pounds; but if it was Just a matter of introducing you to a politician or a financier, that might be done for a thousand francs.

Of course there were members of the nobility who were not for sale. Some English milords were so rich they could afford to be dignified. Some of the old French families were poor as church mice, but chose to live in retirement, dress dowdily, and pray for the return of the Bourbon pretender. But the people Robbie Budd made use of belonged to the grand monde; their pleasure was to shine in public, and the ladies especially were frequently in debt and ravenous for money. Beauty made it her business to know them, and with her woman's tact she would find out what service they could render and what they would expect. Some were frank, and would name their price and be prepared to haggle over it; others took a high tone, and said they would do it to oblige dear, darling Beauty. These were the persons who got more.

Thus Lanny, opening his eyes to the world in which he was to live, came to realize that among the swarms of elegant and showy people who passed through his home there were all sorts and sizes, and each had to be treated differently. A few were friends whom his mother loved and trusted; others were there for business reasons, and might turn out to be "horrid people," who would go off and say mean things about her behind her back. When that happened she would cry, and Lanny would want to kick those false friends the next time he met them. But that was another lesson of the grand monde which you had to learn; you never kicked anybody, but on the contrary were as effusive as ever, and the most you allowed yourself was a sly little thrust with a sharp stiletto of wit.

III

The new deal was to be with Rumania, which was about to supply part of its army with automatic pistols; this had become necessary because Bulgaria had just done the same. Several countries in southeastern Europe had fought two wars among themselves in the past three years, and no one could guess when the next one would start, or who would be fighting whom. Budd's was putting out for the European trade a new eight-cartridge 7.65 mm. automatic which it claimed was the best in the world. Of course Robbie always had to claim that, but in this case he told Lanny that he really believed it.

He had in Paris a fellow by the name of "Bub" Smith, who had been a cowboy and could shoot the head off a hatpin, and would have done it while the hat was on a lady's head if there had been any female willing to face a William Tell from Texas. Robbie had arranged for this man to come whenever needed, because army officers were generally so impressed by good marksmanship that they would attribute it to the gun. Now he was going to bring Bub to the Riviera to meet a certain Captain Bragescu, a member of the commission which was making preliminary investigations prior to the final tests in Bucharest. Robbie laughed about that phrase "preliminary investigations," which meant that the captain wanted to look into Robbie's pocketbook before he looked into his pistol.

The captain arrived unannounced, just after Robbie and Beauty had gone off to a dinner dance. A taxi drew up in front of "Bien-venu," the bell at the gate tinkled, and Rosine ushered into Lanny's presence a mincing and elegant figure with mustaches dyed black and twisted to sharp points, in a sky-blue military uniform fitting tightly and drawn in at the waist so that you knew he was wearing corsets. You might have found it hard to believe that an army officer would have his cheeks painted and powdered and would smell strongly of perfume, but so it was.