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solidarity he had seen them display. They had been polite to Irma, but he was certain that behind

her back, and behind his, they found it difficult to forgive her for being so favored of fortune.

However, as her pregnancy had moved to its climax they had seemed to gather about her and

become tender and considerate; they would have come and helped to fetch and carry, to hold

her hands and pull against them in her spasms of pain, had it not been for the fact that there

were professional women trained for these services.

Lanny thought about his mother, and her role in this drama, the stage entrance of another

soul. Beauty had been an ideal mother-in-law so far. She had worked hard to make this

marriage, for she believed in money; there was in her mind no smallest doubt of money's

rightness, or of money's right to have its way. Had not her judgment been vindicated by the

events of a dreadful Wall Street panic? Where would they all have been, what would have

become of them, if it hadn't been for Irma's fortune? Who was there among Irma's friends who

hadn't wanted help? Go ahead and pretend to be contemptuous of money if you pleased; indulge

yourself in Pink talk, as Lanny did—but sooner or later it was proved that it is money which

makes the mare go, and which feeds the mare, takes care of her shiny coat, and provides her

with a warm and well-bedded stall.

Beauty Budd was going to become a grandmother. She pretended to be distressed at the idea;

she made a moue, exclaiming that it would set the seal of doom upon her social career. Other

handicaps you might evade by one device or another. You might fib about the number of your

years, and have your face lifted, and fill your crow's-feet with skin enamel; but when you were

a grandmother, when anyone could bring that charge publicly and you had to keep silent, that

was the end of you as a charmer, a butterfly, a professional beauty.

But that was all mere spoofing. In reality Beauty was delighted at the idea of there being a

little one to inherit the Barnes fortune and to be trained to make proper use of the prestige and

power it conferred. That meant to be dignified and splendid, to be admired and courted, to be the

prince or princess of that new kind of empire which the strong men of these days had created.

Beauty's head was buzzing with romantic notions derived from the fairytales she had read as a

child. She had brought these imaginings with her to Paris and merged them with the realities of

splendid equipages, costly furs and jewels, titles and honors—and then the figure of a young

Prince Charming, the son of a munitions manufacturer from her homeland. Beauty Budd's had

been a Cinderella story, and it was now being carried further than the fairytales usually go.

Grandma Cinderella!

VI

Lanny couldn't stand any more of this suspense, this premonition of impending calamity. He

rang the bell and demanded to see the head nurse; yes, even he, the superfluous husband, had

some rights in a crisis like this! The functionary made her appearance; grave, stiff with starch

and authority, forbidding behind pincenez. In response to Lanny's demand she consented to

depart from the established formula, that all was going well and that he should be tranquil .

With professional exactitude she explained that in the female organism there are tissues which

have to be stretched, passages which have to be widened—the head nurse made a gesture of the

hands— and there is no way for this to be accomplished save the way of nature, the efforts of

the woman in labor. The accoucheur would pay a visit in the course of the next hour or so,

and he perhaps would be able to put monsieur's mind at rest.

Lanny was disturbed because this personage was not in attendance upon Irma now. The

husband had assumed that when he agreed to the large fee requested, he was entitled to have

the man sit by Irma's bedside and watch her, or at any rate be in the building, prepared for

emergencies. But here the fellow had gone about other duties, or perhaps pleasures. He was an

Englishman, and was probably having a round or two of golf; then he would have his shower, and

his indispensable tea and conversation; after which he expected to stroll blandly in and look at

Irma—and meanwhile whatever dreadful thing was happening might have gone so far as to be

irremediable!

Lanny resumed his seat in the well-cushioned chair, and tried to read the popular novel, and

wished he had brought something more constructive. The conversation of these fashionable

characters was too much like that which was now going on in the casinos and tearooms and

drawing-rooms of this playground of Europe. The financial collapse overseas hadn't sobered

these people; they were still gossiping and chattering; and Lanny Budd was in rebellion

against them, but didn't know what to do about it. Surely in the face of the awful thing that

was happening in this hospice— knowing it to be their own fate through the ages—the women