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insisted on paying back all his friends, and after that he paid off some of the mortgages of "the

Pater," who had been staking him for a long time. The main thing was that Rick had managed

to say something to the British people, and had won a name so that he would be able to say

more.

VII

The Robins were begging the Budds to take a little run into Germany. Yachting time was at

hand, and they had persuaded Papa to put the Bessie Budd into commission again; they

wanted so much to get him away from the worries of business—and who could do it so well as

the wonderful Lanny Budd and his equally wonderful wife? Lanny might even be able to

persuade him to retire for good; or perhaps to take a long cruise around the world, where he

couldn't be reached by friends or foes.

Germany was in the midst of a hot election campaign. A new Reichstag was being chosen; the

"Cabinet of the Barons," otherwise known as the "Monocle Cabinet," was asking for popular

support. Elections were always interesting to Lanny, and the young people urged him to come

and see. But Irma had another maternal seizure; she said "Let's run down to Juan again, and

come back for a cruise at the end of the campaign." Lanny said: "Any way you want it."

So the party broke up. Fanny took a steamer to New York, the Robins took the ferry to

Flushing, and the Budds took one to Calais. They sent a telegram to the palace in Paris, and

dinner was ready when they arrived. Irma observed: "It's nice to have your own place; much

nicer than going to a hotel." Lanny saw that she wished to justify herself for having spent

all that money, so he admitted that it was "nicer." Jerry was there, and with a lot of checks

ready for her to sign; he wanted her to go over the accounts, but she was sure they were all

right, and she signed without looking. The three went to a cabaret show, very gay, with music

and dancing and a scarcity of costumes; some of it made Irma blush, but she was trying to

acquire the cosmopolitan tone.

The following evening they were at Bienvenu again. Baby was bigger and brighter; she knew

more words; she remembered what you had taught her. She was growing a mind! "Oh, Lanny,

come see this, come see that!" Lanny would have been glad to settle down to child study, and

to swimming and target-shooting with Bub, and talking to the workers at the school; but they

had made a date with the Robins; and also there came a letter from Pietro Corsatti, who was at

Lausanne, reporting the conference for his paper. He said: "A great show! How come you're

missing it?"

At this time there were two of Europe's international talk-fests being held on the same Swiss

lake. For many years such gatherings had been Lanny's favorite form of diversion; he had

attended a dozen, and had met all the interesting people, the statesmen and writers, the

reformers and cranks. Irma had never been to one, but had heard him tell about them, and

always in glowing terms. Now he proposed: "Let's stop off on our way to Berlin." "O.K. by me!"

said Irma.

VIII

They followed the course of the River Rhone, every stage of which had some memory of

Marie de Bruyne: the hotels where she and Lanny had stopped, the scenery they had admired,

the history they had recalled. But Lanny judged it better for Irma to have her own

memories, unscented by the perfume of any other woman. They climbed into the region of

pine-trees and wound through rocky gorges where the air was still and clear. Many bridges

and a great dam, and it was Lake Leman, with Geneva, home of the League of Nations, an

institution which for a few years had been the hope of mankind, but now appeared to have

fallen victim to a mysterious illness. Since the beginning of the year a great Conference on

Arms Limitation, with six hundred delegates from thirteen nations, had been meeting here,

and was to continue for a year longer; each nation in turn would bring forward a plea to

limit the sort of weapon which it didn't have or didn't need, and then the other nations would

show what was wrong with that plan.

Farther up the lake was Lausanne, where the premiers and foreign ministers were gathered to

debate the ancient question of reparations. Lanny Budd greeted his friend Pete and other

journalists whom he had been meeting off and on since the great peace conference thirteen

summers ago. They remembered him and were glad to see him; they knew about his gold-

embossed wife and her palace in Paris; they knew about Rick and his play. Here was another

show, and a fashionable young couple was taken right behind the scenes.

Lausanne is built on a mountainside, with each street at a different level. The French had a

hotel at the top, the British one at the bottom, and the other nations in between; the

diplomats ascended or descended to have their wrangles in one another's suites, and the

newspapermen wore themselves thin chasing the various controversies up hill and down.

Such, at any rate, was Corsatti's description. The statesmen were trying to keep their doings

secret, and Pete declared that when one saw you he dived into his hole like a woodchuck.

Your only chance was to catch one of them in swimming.

It was good clean fun, if you were a spectator who liked to hear gossip and ferret out

mysteries, or a devil-may-care journalist with an expense account which you padded freely.

The food was of the best, the climate delightful, the scenery ditto, with Mont Blanc right at

your back door—or so it seemed in the dustless Alpine air. You would be unhappy only if you

thought about the millions of mankind whose destiny was being gambled with by politicians.

The gaming-table was a powder-keg as big as all the Alps, and the players had no thought but

to keep their own country on top, their own class on top within their country, and their own

selves on top within their class.

IX

The statesmen had to drop the Young Plan, by which Germany had been bound to pay

twenty-five billion dollars in reparations. But France couldn't give up the hope of getting

something; so now with incessant wrangling they were adopting a plan whereby at the end

of three years Germany was to give bonds for three billion marks. But most observers agreed

that this was pure futility; Germany was borrowing, not paying. Germany was saying to the

bankers of the United States: "We have five billions of your money, and if you don't save us

you will lose it all!" The people of Germany were saying: "If you don't feed us we shall vote

for Hitler, or worse yet for Thalmann, the Bolshevik." The statesmen of Germany were saying:

"We are terrified about what will happen"—and who could say whether they were really

terrified or only pretending? Who could trust anybody in power, anywhere in all the world?

Robbie Budd had told his son a story, which he said all business men knew. A leather

merchant went to his banker to get his notes renewed and the banker refused to comply with

the request. The leather merchant told his troubles and pleaded hard; at last he asked: "Were you

ever in the leather business?" When the banker replied: "No," the other said: "Well, you're in it

now." And that, opined Pietro Corsatti, was the position of the investing public of the United

States; they were in the leather business in Germany, in the steel and coal and electrical and

chemical businesses, to say nothing of the road-building business and the swimming-pool

business. Nor was it enough to renew the notes; it was necessary to put up working capital to

keep these businesses from falling into ruins and their workers from turning Red!

Irma knew that this was the "great world" in which her career was to be carried on, so she

listened to the gossip and learned all she could about the eminent actors in the diplomatic

drama. Lanny had met several of the under-secretaries, and these realized that the wealthy young

couple were entitled to be introduced to the "higher ups." Irma was told that next winter

would probably see more negotiations in Paris, and it was her intention that these im portant

personages should find her home a place for relaxation and perhaps for private conferences.

Emily herself couldn't have done better.

Lanny observed his wife "falling for" the British ruling class. Many Americans did this; it was

a definite disease, known as "Anglomania." Upper-class Englishmen were tall and good-looking,

quiet and soft-spoken, cordial to their friends and reserved to others; Irma thought that was

the right way to be. There was Lord Wickthorpe, whom Lanny had once met on a tally-ho

coach driving to Ascot; they had both been youngsters, but now Wickthorpe was a grave

diplomat, carrying a brief-case full of responsibility— or so he looked, and so Irma imagined

him, though Lanny, who had been behind many scenes, assured her that the sons of great

families didn't as a rule do much hard work. Wickthorpe was divinely handsome, with a

tiny light brown mustache, and Irma said: "How do you suppose such a man could remain a

bachelor?"

"I don't know," said the husband. "Margy can probably tell you. Maybe he couldn't get the

girl he wanted."

"I should think any girl would have a hard time refusing what he has."

"It can happen," replied Lanny. "Maybe they quarrel, or something goes wrong. Even the rich

can't always get what they want." Lanny's old "Pink" idea!

X

The assembled statesmen signed a new treaty of Lausanne, in which they agreed to do a

number of things, now that it was too late. Having signed and sealed, they went their various

ways, and Irma and Lanny motored out of Switzerland by way of Basle, and before dinner-time

were in Stuttgart. A bitterly fought election campaign had covered the billboards with slogans

and battle-cries of the various parties. Lanny, who got hold of a newspaper as soon as he

arrived anywhere, read the announcement of a giant Versammlung of the Nazis to be held

that evening, the principal speaker being that Reich Organization Leader Number One who

had received such a dressing-down from his Führer in Lanny's presence some twenty months

ago. Lanny remarked: "I'd like to hear what he's saying now."

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Irma. "Such a bore!" But she didn't want to be left in a hotel room

alone, so she said: "Let's not stay too late."

During those twenty months a Franco-American playboy had been skipping over the world

with the agility conferred by railroads and motor-cars, airplanes, steamships, and private

yachts. He had been over most of western Europe, England, and New England. He had read

books on many subjects, he had played thousands of musical compositions, looked at as many

paintings, been to many theaters, danced in many ball-rooms, and swum in many seas; he had

chatted with his friends and played with his baby, eaten the choicest of foods, drunk the best

wines, and enjoyed the love of a beautiful and fashionable wife. In short, he had had the most

delightful sort of life that the average man could imagine.

But meantime the people of Germany had been living an utterly different life; doing hard and

monotonous labor for long hours at low wages; finding the cost of necessities creeping upward

and insecurity increasing, so that no man could be sure that he and his family were going to