o 3b3e7475144cf77c

Presently he revealed the fact that he was taking steps to become a citizen of France. He had

lived in the country for thirty-five years without ever bothering; but now it appeared that "the

party" wanted him to run for the Chamber of Deputies. He had made himself a reputation as

an orator. Said Lanny: "They want him to put on his phonograph records for all France."

Irma, who was money-conscious, thought at once: "He's come to get us to put up for his

campaign." Lanny didn't have much money since his father had got caught in the slump. Irma

resolved: "I won't help him. I don't approve of it." She had discovered the power of her money

during the Wall Street crisis, and was learning to enjoy it.

But then another point of view occurred to her. Maybe it would be a distinguished thing to

have a relative in the Chamber, even if he was a Communist! She wasn't sure about this, and

wished she knew more about political affairs. Now and then she had that thought about

various branches of knowledge, and would resolve to find out; but then she would forget

because it was too much trouble. Just now they had told her that she musn't get excited

about anything, because excitement would spoil her milk. A nuisance, turning yourself into a

cow! But it was pleasant enough here in the sunshine, being entertained with novel ideas.

Lanny apparently agreed with his uncle that what the Russians were doing was important—

for them. The dispute was over the question whether the same thing was going to happen in

France and England and America. Lanny maintained that these countries, being "democracies,"

could bring about the changes peaceably. That was his way; he didn't want to hurt anybody, but to

discuss ideas politely and let the best ideas win. However, Uncle Jesse kept insisting that Lanny

and his Socialist friends were aiding the capitalists by fooling the workers, luring them with false

hopes, keeping them contented with a political system which the capitalists had bought and

paid for. Lanny, on the other hand, argued that it was the Reds who were betraying the

workers, frightening the middle classes by violent threats and driving them into the camp of the

reactionaries.

So it went, and the young wife listened without getting excited. Marriage was a strange

adventure; you let yourself in for a lot of things you couldn't have foreseen. These two most

eccentric families, the Budds and the Blacklesses! Irma's own family consisted of Wall Street

people. They bought and sold securities and made fortunes or lost them, and that seemed a

conventional and respectable kind of life; but now she had been taken to a household full of

Reds and Pinks of all shades, and spiritualist mediums and religious healers, munitions makers

and Jewish Schieber, musicians and painters and art dealers—you never knew when you

opened your eyes in the moming what strange new creatures you were going to encounter

before night. Even Lanny, who was so dear and sweet, and with whom Irma had entered into

the closest of all intimacies, even he became suddenly a stranger when he got stirred up and

began pouring out his schemes for making the world over—schemes which clearly involved his

giving up his own property, and Irma's giving up hers, and wiping out the hereditary rights of

the long-awaited and closely guarded Frances Barnes Budd!

IV

Uncle Jesse stayed to lunch, then went his way; and after the nap which the doctor had

prescribed for the nursing mother, Irma enjoyed the society of her stepfather-in-law—if there

is a name for this odd relationship. Mr. Parsifal Dingle, Beauty's new husband, came over from

the villa to call on the baby. Irma knew him well, for they had spent the past summer on a

yacht; he was a religious mystic, and certainly restful after the Reds and the Pinks. He never

argued, and as a rule didn't talk unless you began a conversation; he was interested in things

going on in his own soul, and while he was glad to tell about them, you had to ask. He

would sit by the bassinet and gaze at the infant, and there would come a blissful look on his

round cherubic face; you would think there were two infants, and that their souls must be

completely in tune.

The man of God would close his eyes, and be silent for a while, and Irma wouldn't interrupt

him, knowing that he was giving little Frances a "treatment." It was a sort of prayer with which

he filled his mind, and he was quite sure that it affected the mind of the little one. Irma

wasn't sure, but she knew it couldn't do any harm, for there was nothing except good in the

mind of this gentle healer. He seemed a bit uncanny while sitting with Madame Zyszynski, the

Polish medium, in one of her trances; conversing in the most matter-of-fact way with the alleged

Indian spirit. "Tecumseh," as he called himself, "was whimsical and self-willed, and would tell

something or refuse to tell, according to whether or not you were respectful to him and

whether or not the sun was shining in the spirit world. Gradually Irma had got used to it all,