WORLD'S END

She would give dinner parties, also in the French manner, the hostess sitting midway between the ends of the table, putting the most important guest directly across from her, and then shading off to persons of least importance, who sat at the ends. There was a French phrase for that too, le bout de table. At dinner parties you did not chat with the person on either hand, but listened to those whose importance had been indicated by their seating. One of these was privileged to hold forth for a few minutes on any subject, and then he was expected to let the hostess indicate another performer. A cultivated people had been centuries evolving this routine, and to them it was extremely important.

II

There wasn't much place for children in Les Forкts, and they were rarely invited. But Mrs. Emily had met Lanny on the Riviera, and knew that he could be counted upon to wipe his feet before treading the heavy red velvet carpets which covered the entrance hall and went up the central stairway. He would stand for a long time looking at a painting in silence, and if he asked a question it would be an intelligent one. He never interrupted the conversation of his elders, and had listened to so many conversations that he was almost an elder himself. Mrs. Emily had suggested to Beauty that he might come and stay until they both were ready to return to Juan-les-Pins.

So here was Lanny, playing tennis with the children of the steward who managed the estate, swimming in the lake, riding the fine, high-strung horses, playing not too loudly upon a sonorous piano, and reading in a library where a pale and black-clad scholar had spent a lifetime cataloguing and watching over treasures. Here was a person worth listening to, and glad to have an audience. A week with M. Priedieu meant as much to Lanny Budd as a term in college. The old gentleman helped to orientate him in the world of books, making known to him the writers from whom he could find out about other writers; it was like giving him a map of the forests, so that he could go out and explore for himself.

Another educational influence was Mrs. Emily's mother, who was history. She had been a "Baltimore belle," and told how beautiful she used to be and how the beaux had swarmed about her. Now she was in her mid-seventies, and had lovely golden curls which looked quite natural; Lanny was surprised when his mother told him how once the sprightly old lady had rocked with laughter and thrown her curls into her plate of soup. She was painted all pink and white over her many wrinkles, and was automatically driven to exercise charm upon anything that came along in trousers.

Lanny fell under her spell, and she told him how her daughter Emily had been born amid the sounds of battle; the Fifth New York regiment, marching through Baltimore on its way to defend Washington at the outbreak of the American Civil War, had fired upon the citizens. "That fixes her age at fifty-three, so she doesn't like to have it told on her, and you must keep it a secret; but Emily herself won't be able to keep it much longer unless she consents to dye her hair. Dear me, how I do rattle on!" said Mrs. Sally Lee Sibley; and she added: "What a hideous and ruinous thing that war was, and how lucky we are who don't have to see such things!"

Lanny was moved to tell how yesterday he had heard Prince Skobelkov remark that Russia ought to bring war on right now, because his country was ready and could never be more so. The old lady looked at the boy in horror and whispered: "Oh, no, no! Don't let anybody say such a thing! Oh, what wicked people!" Mrs. Sally Lee Sibley lived in Europe because it was her fate, but privately she hated it.

III

Of course a half-grown boy was not invited to a salon or to formal dinner parties; but there were house guests, and callers in great numbers, and Lanny met them, and listened to conversations 3bout the state of Europe, in which persons who were on the inside of affairs talked freely, being among those who had a right to know. There was a Russian military mission in Paris, and the famous general, Prince Skobelkov, was a member of it; he found time to motor out and have tea, even in the midst of a world-shaking crisis. Also the French Senator Bidou-Lascelles, who said, in American poker language: "Germany is trying to use Austria to bluff Russia, and this will go on indefinitely unless we call the bluff." The Prince assented, and added: "Our official information is that Austria is unprepared, and will prove a weak ally."