WORLD'S END

But this time she wanted to talk about Harry. He was such an obliging and generous fellow, and his family in Pennsylvania was a very old one; he had an ancestor who had been a member of the First Continental Congress. Harry liked Lanny very much, calling him the best-mannered boy he had ever met; but he thought it was too bad for him not to have a chance to know his own country. "That's what Mr. Hackabury said, too," remarked the boy.

But Beauty didn't want to talk about soap just then; she was interested in plate glass. "Tell me," she persisted, "do you really like him?"

"Why, yes, I think he's all right." Lanny was a bit reserved.

But then came a knockout. "How would you feel if I was to marry him?"

The boy would have had to be a highly trained diplomat to hide the dismay which smote him. The blood mounted to his cheeks, and he stared at his mother until she dropped her eyes. "Oh, Beauty!" he exclaimed. "What about Marcel?"

"Come sit here by me, dear," she said. "It's not easy to explain such things to one so young. Marcel has never expected to marry me. He has no money and he knows that I have none."

"But I don't understand. Would Robbie stop giving you money if you married?"

"No, dear, I don't mean that. But I can't always live on what Robbie gives me."

"But why not, Beauty? Aren't we getting along all right?"

"You don't know about my affairs. I have an awful lot of debts; they drive me to distraction."

"But why can't we go and live quietly at Bienvenu and not spend so much money?"

"I can't shut myself up like that, Lanny - I'm just not made for it. I'd have to give up all my friends, I couldn't travel anywhere, I couldn't entertain. And you wouldn't have any education - you wouldn't see the world as you've been doing - "

"Oh, please don't do it on my account!" the boy broke in. "I'd be perfectly happy to stay home and read books and play the piano."

"You think you would, dear; but that's because you don't know enough about life. People like us have to have money and opportunities - so many things you will find that you want."

"If I do, I can go to work and get them for myself, can't I?"

Beauty didn't answer; for of course that wasn't the real point; she was thinking about what she herself wanted right now. After a while Lanny ventured, in a low voice: "Marcel will be so unhappy!"

"Marcel has his art, dear. He's perfectly content to live in a hut and paint pictures all day."

"Maybe he is, so long as you are there. But doesn't he miss you right now?"

"Are you so fond of him, Lanny?"

"I thought that was what you wanted!" the boy burst out. "I thought that was the way to be fair to you!"

"It was, dear; and it was sweet. I appreciate it more than I've ever told you. But there are circumstances that I cannot control."

There was a pause, and the mother began to talk about Harry Murchison again. He had been in love with her for quite a while, and had been begging her to marry him; his love was a true and unselfish one. He was an unusually fine man, and could offer her things that others couldn't - not merely his money, but protection, and help in managing her affairs, in dealing with other people, who so often took advantage of her trustfulness and her lack of business knowledge.

"Harry has a lovely home in Pennsylvania, and we can go there to live, or we can travel - whatever we please. He's prepared to do everything he can for you; you can go to school if you like, or have a tutor - you can take Mr. Elphinstone to America with you, if you wish."

But Lanny didn't care anything about Mr. Elphinstone; he didn't care anything about America. He loved their home at Juan, the friends he had there and the things he did there. "Tell me, Beauty," he persisted, "don't you love Marcel any more?"

"In a way," she answered; "but" - then she stopped, embarrassed.

"Has he done something that isn't fair to you?"

The boy saw the beginning of tears in his mother's eyes. "Lanny, I don't think it's right for you to take up notions like that, and cross-question me and try to pin me down - "

"But I'm only trying to understand, Beauty!"

"You can't understand, because you aren't old enough, and these things are complicated and difficult. It's hard for a woman to know her own heart, to say nothing of trying to explain it to her son." "Well, I wish very much that you'd do what you can," said Lanny, gravely. Something told him that this was a crisis in their lives; and how he wished he could grow up suddenly! "Can you love two men at the same time, Beauty?"

"That is what I've been asking myself for a long while. Apparently I can." Beauty hadn't intended to make any such confession, but she was in a state of inner turmoil, and it was her nature to blurt things out. "My love for Marcel has always been that of a mother; I've thought of him as a helpless child that needed me."

"Well, doesn't he still need you? And if he does, what is going to become of him?"