WORLD'S END

Said Lanny, quickly: "I think we'd all three better wait until we get back to the hotel." He made a motion of the ringer toward the taxi driver in front of them. To be sure, they were speaking English - but then the driver might have been a waiter at Mouquin's on Sixth Avenue before the war. The two men fell silent; and Lanny remarked: "Well, I heard the guns. Has the treaty really been signed?"

V

When they were safely locked in their suite, Robbie got out his whisky bottle, which the flics hadn't taken. He had been under a severe strain, and took a nip without waiting for the soda and ice; so did the painter. Lanny had been under a longer strain than either of them, but he waited for the ginger beer, for he wasn't yet of age, and moreover he thought that his father was drinking too much, and was anxious not to encourage him. Meanwhile the youth strolled casually about the suite, looking into the bathroom and the closets and under the beds; he didn't know just how a dictograph worked, but he looked everywhere for any wires. After the bellboy had departed, the ex-prisoner opened the door and looked out. He was in a melodramatic mood.

At last they were settled, and the father said: "Now, please, may I have the honor of knowing about this affair?"

"First," said Lanny, with a grin, "let me shut Uncle Jesse up. Uncle Jesse, you remember the Christmas before the war, I paid a visit to Germany?"

"I heard something about it."

"I was staying with a friend of mine. Better not to use names. That friend was in Paris until recently, and he was the man who came to call on you at midnight."

"Oh, so that's it!" exclaimed the painter.

"I gave him my word never to tell anybody. But I'm sure he won't mind your knowing, because you're likely to become his brother-in-law before long - you may be it now. Beauty and he are lovers, and that's why she's gone to Spain."

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed Jesse. And then again: "Oh, my God!" He was speaking English, in which these words carry far more weight than in French.

"I told Robbie about it," Lanny continued, "because he has a right to know about Beauty. But I didn't tell him about you, because that was your secret. May I tell him now?"

"Evidently he's not going to be happy till he hears it."

Lanny turned to his father. "I put my friend in touch with Uncle Jesse, and my friend brought money to help him stir up the workers against the blockade. I thought that was a worthy cause and I still think so."

"You knew you were risking your life?" demanded the shocked father.

"I've seen people risking their lives for so long, it has sort of lost meaning. But you can imagine that I felt pretty uncomfortable this afternoon. Also, you can see what a risk Uncle Jesse took when he walked into that place."

Robbie made no response. He had poured out the drinks for the red sheep of his former mistress's family, but not an inch farther did he mean to go.

"You see how it was," continued Lanny. "When my friend stopped coming, Uncle Jesse wanted to know why; he brought me some literature so that this friend might see what he had been doing. He asked me to pass it on if I got a chance, and I said I would. He suggested that I didn't need to read it. I didn't say I wouldn't - I just said that I understood. Uncle Jesse has really been playing fair with you, Robbie. It was my friend and I who planned this whole scheme and brought it to him."

"I hope you don't feel too proud of it," said the father, grimly.

"I'm not defending myself, I'm trying to set you straight about Uncle Jesse. If I've picked up ideas that you don't like, it hasn't been from him, for he's avoided talking to me, and even told me I couldn't understand his ideas if I tried. I'm a parasite, a member of the wasting classes, all that sort of thing. What I've had explained has been by Alston, and Herron, and Steffens - "

"Whom you met in Jesse's room, I believe!"

"Well, he could hardly refuse to introduce me to his friend when I walked in. As a matter of fact I'd have met Steffens anyway, because Alston's friends talked a lot about his visit to Russia, and he was at the dinner where they decided to resign. So whatever I've done that was wrong, you must blame me and not Uncle Jesse. I don't know whether he hasn't any use for me, or whether he just pretends that he hasn't, but anyhow that's the way things have been between us."

Said Robbie, coldly: "Nothing alters the fact that he came to this hotel and brought a swarm of hornets down on both of us. Look at my room!" Robbie pointed to his effects strewn here and there. "And my business papers taken by the police, and copies made, no doubt - and sold by some crook to my business rivals!" Robbie knew how such things were done, having done them.

"You are perfectly right," said the painter. "It is my fault, and I am sorry as can be."