WORLD'S END

When he and Jerry went fishing they watched every ship that passed - and there were great numbers - knowing that at any moment there might be an explosion and a pillar of black smoke. They never happened to see that, but they heard firing more than once, and ran to a high point of the Cap and with field glasses watched a sinking ship, and saw motorboats hurrying out to bring off survivors. Up and down the coast people told stories of hospital ships sunk with all on board, of loaded troopships torpedoed, of submarines rammed, or sunk by a well-aimed shot, or getting entangled in the chains and nets now set in front of harbors.

The fighting at Gallipoli had one important consequence for Lanny. The father of Rosemary Codwilliger was wounded, and in a hospital in Malta; this made the mother decide to spend the winter on the Riviera, where he could join her when he was able to be moved. "She says she's in need of a rest," wrote the girl, "but I think it's to get me out of the notion of nursing. She's afraid I'll get to know people outside our social circle."

The family wanted a quiet place, Rosemary added, and it happened that the Baroness Sophie had a little villa on the Cap, not the one she lived in. Lanny sent a snapshot of it to the girl, and as a result her family rented the place and set a date for their arrival; the mother, a widowed aunt, Rosemary herself, and her father whenever the doctors and the submarines would let him.

Lanny was sixteen now, and old enough to know that he was interested in girls. This grave and sweet English lass had captured his imagination, and he looked back upon the river Thames and its green and pleasant land as one of his happiest memories. He had met other girls on the Riviera, and had swum and boated and danced with them, but principally they interested him because they reminded him of Rosemary.

A year and a half had passed, and now she was coming, and Lanny hoped to be included in her social circle. His mother was a respectable married woman, and his stepfather had all but given his life in the war which was England's. Lanny had never met Rosemary's mother or aunt, but he hoped for success with them as in the case of the Frau Doktor Hofrat von und zu Nebenaltenberg - who now, by the way, was among the Germans interned on the ile Ste.-Marguerite, which Lanny could view from the veranda of his home.

The boy had told his mother about the English girl and how much he liked her; it would have been cruelty to withhold such news from Beauty, to whom it was the most interesting of subjects. She warned him not to expect too much from the English, because they were a peculiar people, rigidly bound by their own conventions. With Americans they were apt to go so far and no farther.

Just now Beauty had another love affair on her hands, that of Jerry Pendleton, who clamored for advice about French girls. He was finding in one of them such an odd mixture of fervor and reserve; and such a complication of mothers and aunts! Did Mrs. Detaze think that an American could be happy with a French wife? And would such a wife be happy in America? The situation was complicated by the fact that Jerry didn't know what he wanted to do with himself. He had come away fully determined to escape the drug store business; he dreamed of being a newspaperman, perhaps a foreign correspondent. But what would he do with a wife under those circumstances? Lanny's tutor, torn between his destinies, was much like Beauty having to choose between Pittsburgh and the Cap d'Antibes. Lanny's lessons suffered during the discussions - but he could always go and read the encyclopedia.

V

The three ladies and a maid arrived, and Lanny was at the train to meet them and take them to the villa. He had the keys, and knew the place and showed it to them. He had lived on the Cap all his life, and could tell them about the shops and services and other practical matters. Also he knew about servants - the innumerable relatives of Leese were available and the ladies had only to choose. The most exclusive English family could hardly reject the assistance of such a polite and agreeable youth.

Mrs. Codwilliger was a tall, thin-faced lady from whom Lanny might have learned how Rosemary would look when she was forty; but he didn't. She and her sister, tall and still thinner, were the daughters of Lord Dewthorpe, and estimated themselves accordingly. But when Lanny's mother offered to call, they could not say no; and when they heard the romantic story of the painter who stayed in his studio alone, never appearing in public without a veil, their deep English instincts of self-sufficiency were touched. When Lanny offered to lend them several of his stepfather's seascapes to remedy the rather crude taste in art of the baroness, they had to admit that the habitability of their home had been increased.