o 3b3e7475144cf77c

as you might have expected, extremely precocious; he knew a little about all the various

political movements, also the art movements, and would use their patter in a fashion which made

it hard for you to keep from smiling. He had thin, sensitive features and was serious-minded,

which made him the predestined victim of Marceline Detaze, the little flirt, the little minx.

Marceline didn't know anything about politics, but she knew some of the arts, including that of

coquetry. Half French and half American, she also had been brought up among older people, but

of a different sort. From the former Baroness de la Tourette, the hardware lady from

Cincinnati, she had learned the trick of saying outrageous things with a perfectly solemn face

and then bursting into laughter at a sober lad's look of bewilderment. Apparently Alfy never

would learn about it.

The families had planned a match for these two by cable as soon as they had appeared on the

scene. The parents made jokes about it, in the free and easy modern manner, and the children

had taken up the practice. "I'll never marry you if you don't learn to dance better," Marceline

would announce. Alfy, peeved, would respond: "You don't have to marry me if you don't

want to." He would never have the least idea what was coming next. One time her feelings

would be hurt, and the next time she would be relieved of a great burden; but whichever it

was, it would turn out to be teasing, and Alfy would be like a man pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp on

a dark night.

There had been dancing in Marceline's home ever since she was old enough to toddle about.

So-called "society" dancing, Dalcroze dancing, Isadora Duncan dancing, Provencal peasant

dancing, English and American country dancing—every sort that a child could pick up. Some

kind of music going most of the time, and a phonograph and a radio so that she could make it

to order. On the yacht, as soon as her lessons were finished, she would come running to where

Hansi and Bess were practicing; she would listen for a minute to get the swing of it, then her

feet would start moving and she would be dancing all over the saloon. She would hold out her

hands to Lanny, and they would begin improvising; they had learned to read each other's

signals, and once more, as in the old Dalcroze days, you saw music made visible.

No wonder Marceline could dance rings all around a lad who knew only that somnambulistic

walking in time to jazz thumping which prevailed in fashionable society. Alfy would try his best,

but look and feel like a young giraffe caught in an earthquake. "Loosen up, loosen up!" she would

cry, and he would kick up his heels and toes in a most un-English manner. The girl would give

him just enough encouragement to keep him going, but never enough to let him doubt who

was going to call the tune in their household.

Lanny would see them sitting apart from the others while music was being played in the

evening. Sometimes they would be holding hands, and he would guess that they were working

out their problem in their own way. He recalled the days when he had paid his first visit to The

Reaches, and had sat on the bank of the River Thames, listening to Kurt Meissner playing the

slow movement of Mozart's D-minor concerto. How miraculous life had seemed to him, with

one arm about Rosemary Codwilliger, pronounced Culliver, shivering with delight and

dreaming of a marvelous future. Nothing had worked out as he had planned it; he reflected

upon life, and how seldom it gives us what we expect. The young people come along, and

clamor so loudly for their share, and have so little idea of the pain that awaits them. One's heart

aches at the knowledge, but one cannot tell them; they have to have their own way and pay

their own penalties.

III

The Bessie Budd cruised in waters frequented by vessels of every size, from ocean liners

down to tiny sailboats. One more did not matter, provided you kept a lookout and blew your

whistle now and then. They went up into the Irish Sea; the weather was kind, one day of blue

sky succeeded another, and the air resounded with music and the tapping of feet upon the deck.

Hansi and Bess practiced diligently, Beauty and Irma played bridge with Nina and Rahel,

while Lanny and Rick sat apart and discussed everything that had happened to them during

the past year.

Lanny had visited the great manufacturing-plant of his forefathers, and had been received as

a prince consort in the Newcastle Country Club and in Irma's imitation French chateau on Long

Island. Rick, meanwhile, had written a play about a young married couple who were divided

over the issue of violence in the class struggle. Rick had written several plays about young

people tormented by some aspect of this struggle. In the present opus the talk of his young

idealist sounded much like that of Lanny Budd, while the ultra-Red wife might have had a

private yacht named after her. Rick apologized for this, saying that a dramatist had to use such