WORLD'S END

Out of this came the first little rift between Lanny and his girlfriend. Rosemary wasn't satisfied to have him hold his tongue; she began to pin him down and ask what he really thought. When he repeated his formula, she wanted to know: "What are you, a man or a dummy? Do you have to think everything your father thinks? If I thought what my parents think, would I be here with you?" Lanny was troubled, because he had taken it for granted that this delightful young woman was as gentle as she looked. But apparently a sharp tongue was part of the equipment of every "feminist," and first among "women's rights" was the right to tell her man what she thought of him.

Both British and French were bitter against the Americans, because they were not taking part in the war, but just making money out of it, and at the same time making objections to the blockade. Nearly all the Americans in France felt the same way, and were ashamed of their country. The conversation at Bienvenu was all along that line; and while Marcel was careful not to say anything in Lanny's presence, the boy knew that Marcel blamed Robbie because he was making money out of the French and at the same time withholding his sympathy from them. The painter was eaten up with anxiety all during the battle of Verdun; he would burst out with some expression of loathing for the "Huns," and Lanny wouldn't say anything, and it would appear that a chill had fallen in the home. The relationship of stepfather and stepson is a complicated one at best, and this wasn't the best.

The boy would go off and try to think out by himself the problems of the war. He would remember things that Robbie had told him about the trickery of Allied diplomacy. Right now it was being said in America that the Allies had made secret treaties dividing up the spoils of the war they hadn't won; worse yet, they had promised the same territory to different peoples. Robbie would send articles about such matters to his son, finding ways to get them by the censor - and the consequence of knowing about such things was that the boy no longer fitted anywhere in France.

IX

Marcel painted a picture of the poilu, the savior of la patrie. He tried to put into it all his love for the men with whom he had trained and fought. When he was done, he said it wasn't good enough, he hadn't got what he wanted; but his friends thought differently; the painting was shown at a salon in Paris, and made a hit, and was taken up and reproduced in posters. Beauty thought that her husband would get satisfaction out of that service to his country; but nothing could please him, it appeared. He didn't want to be a popular painter - and anyhow, art was futility in a time like this.

So came a crisis in the affairs of this married pair. How rarely does it happen that two human creatures, with all their differences, weaknesses, moods can get along without quarreling! Beauty was carrying her cross, in the best evangelical church fashion; she was pouring out her own redemptive blood in the secrecy of her heart. But she couldn't be happy in her tragic situation, and the bitterness which she repressed was bound to escape at some spots in her life. She couldn't restrain her annoyance at this contrary attitude of Marcel. Why should a man go to the trouble of making pictures, and then not want to have people see them, even quarrel with those who wanted a chance to admire them? Why was it necessary to say something contrary every time his work was praised? In vain did Lanny, budding young critic, try to make plain to his mother that a true artist is wrestling with a vision of something higher and better, and cannot endure to be admired for what he knows is less than his best.

Out of this clash of temperaments came a terrible thing: Lanny came home one evening from his love-making to find his mother lying on her bed sobbing. Her husband had broached to her the idea of going back into the army. He had the crazy notion that he ought to be helping to hold the line at Verdun; he was a trained man, and France needed every one. He was as good as ever, he in insisted; he could march, and had tried long walks to make sure. He could handle a gun - the only thing wrong was that he was ugly, but out there in mud and powder smoke who would care?

Beauty had had a fit of hysterics and called him some bad names, an ingrate, a fool, and so on. If she meant no more to him than that, he would have to go - but he would never see her again. "I did it once, Marcel, but I won't do it a second time."