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must maintain the professional manner. "I'll be within call," said the surgeon. "You might as

well get it off your mind for a while." Lanny thanked him.

After the surgeon had gone, Jerry said: "When do we eat?" Lanny wanted to say that he

couldn't eat, but he knew that Jerry was there for the purpose of making him change his mind. It

was dinner-hour at the Pension Flavin, and Jerry recited a jingle to the effect that he knew a

boarding-house not far away where they had ham and eggs three times a day. "Oh, how those

boarders yell when they hear the dinner-bell!"—and so on. This was the sporting way to deal

with the fact that your mother-in-law runs a medium-priced pension in the most fashionable of

Riviera towns. Lanny knew also that he hadn't visited the Pendleton family for some time, and

that, having won the biggest matrimonial sweepstakes, it was up to him to show that he didn't

mean to "high-hat" his poor friends.

"All right," he said; "but I'll be glum company."

' The boarders know all about it," responded Jerry.

Indeed they did! Wherever the boarders came from and whatever they were, they knew about

the Budd family and felt themselves members of it. For sixteen years Jerry Pendleton had

been going fishing with Lanny Budd, and the boarders had eaten the fish. At the outset Jerry

had been a boarder like themselves, but after he had driven the Boches out of France he had

married the daughter of the pension. And then had come the time when another of the

boarders had married Lanny's mother; from that time on, the boarders had all regarded

themselves as Budds, and entitled to every scrap of gossip concerning the family.

IX

Driving back to the hospital, Lanny took the precaution to stop and purchase several

magazines, French, English, and American. He would equip himself for a siege, and if one

subject failed to hold his attention he would try others. Arriving at the reception-room, he

found that he was no longer alone; in one of the chairs sat a French gentleman, stoutish and

prosperous, betraying in aspect and manner those symptoms which Lanny recognized.

The stranger's misery loved company, and he introduced himself as an avocat from a near-by

town. It was his wife's first accouchement, and he was in a terrible state of fidgets and could

hardly keep his seat; he wanted to bother the nurses with questions every time one entered the

room. He seemed to Lanny absurdly naive; he actually didn't know about the "bearing-down

pains," that they were according' to the arrangements of la nature, and that women didn't very

often die of them. Speaking as a veteran of some ten hours, Lanny explained about the

stretching of tissues, and comforted the stranger as best he could. Later on, seeing that his

advice was without effect, Lanny became bored, and buried himself in the latest issue of the

New Statesman.

He would have liked very much to inquire whether there had been any change in the status

of his wife; but the egregious emotionalism of Monsieur Fouchard reminded him that the Budds

were stern Anglo-Saxons and should behave accordingly. He resolutely fixed his attention upon

an article dealing with the final reparations settlement of the World War, now more than

eleven years in the past, and the probable effects of that settlement upon the various nations

involved. This was a subject of interest to a young man who had been born in Switzerland of

American parents and had lived chunks of his life in France, Germany, England, and "the

States." His many friends in these countries belonged to the ruling classes and took political

and economic developments as their personal affairs.

The surgeon was a long time in returning, and Lanny began once more to feel himself a

defrauded client. He forgot that there are telephones, whereby an obstetrician can keep

informed as to his patient while reading the latest medical journal at home or playing a game of

billiards at his club. When the Englishman at last appeared, he informed the anxious husband

that the time for action was approaching, and that Mrs. Budd would soon be taken to the

delivery-room. After that Lanny found it impossible to interest himself in what L'illustration

had to report about the prospects for the spring Salons—important though this subject was to

one who earned his living by buying or selling works of art on commission.

There was no use trying to be Anglo-Saxon any longer. Better give up and admit the

hegemony of mother nature. Lanny put down his magazine and watched Monsieur Fouchard

pacing the floor of the reception-room, and when Monsieur Fouchard sat down and lighted a

cigarette, Lanny got up and did the pacing. Meanwhile they talked. The Frenchman told about

his wife; she was only nineteen, her charms were extraordinary, and Monsieur Fouchard spared

no details in describing them. He wanted to tell the whole story of their courtship and marriage,

and was grateful to a stranger for listening.