WORLD'S END

"I could make a pile of money if I knew. The men who have to make the decision are running around like a lot of ants when you turn over a stone. If England had said she'd defend France, there wouldn't have been any war. But that's the trouble with countries that have parliaments, they can't make up their minds to anything - not until it's too late."

X

Harry Murchison had put down his money and engaged a stateroom for two on a steamer sailing the next day; also a berth for Lanny in another stateroom. He had done this before the rush began, and now it was a part of his "ultimatum." He and Beauty could be married that night; or they could be married by the captain of the steamer. Harry came two or three times during the day to plead his cause and argue against the folly of hesitation. He would lock the door so that nobody could interrupt them, and he wouldn't let her answer the telephone; he was a young man who had been used to having his own way most of his life. He hadn't much consideration for Beauty's feelings; he said that she was somewhat hysterical right now, and didn't really know her own mind. Once the die was cast, the marriage words spoken, she'd settle down and be glad somebody had acted for her.

It was the technique known in America as "high-pressure salesmanship." Beauty would beg for time, but Harry would insist: "I've got to sail on that steamer. There's going to be an awful lot of plate glass smashed in the next few months, and I've got to be in Pittsburgh to see about replacing it."

"Don't leave me, Harry," the tormented woman pleaded. "Surely you can put it off one more week."

"If you don't go now you mayn't be able to go until the war's over. Call up the steamship company and see what they tell you. Everything is booked for months ahead, and there's talk of our government having to send steamers to get Americans out of Europe."

Robbie decided suddenly that he had better go too. Cablegrams were being delayed and censorship might stop them entirely. He told Harry that if Beauty rejected the chance, he'd take her half of the stateroom. "But don't let her know it!" he hastened to add. "If she goes, I'll manage to get on board somehow." Robbie was a friend of all the steamship people, and knew discreet ways to arrange matters. "They can put a cot in the captain's cabin," he remarked, smiling.

It was a trying position for Lanny, not knowing whether his future was to be on the French Riviera or in a smoky valley of steel and coal three thousand miles to the west. He made no complaint for himself, but he did think that the cards were being stacked against Marcel. It was an elementary principle of justice that both sides should be represented in any court. Lanny had a strong impulse to represent the painter, but Robbie had asked him to keep his hands off, and Robbie's wish was a command.

In between codings and decodings, Lanny would go to see his mother, and tell her that he loved her - that was about all he could say. Toward evening he found Mrs. Emily with her; and these two fashionable ladies had tears running down their cheeks. It wasn't because of Beauty's problems, nor was it the million Frenchwomen left at home to face the thought of bereavement. It was a terrible story which Mrs. Emily had brought. While troops were marching and crowds shouting and singing in all the streets, fate had chosen to strike another blow at Isadora Duncan. She had lain in agony for many hours, trying to bear her baby; and at last when it was placed in her arms, she had felt it suddenly beginning to turn cold. She screamed, and the attendants came running and tried to save it, but in vain; in a few minutes the spark of life had expired, and that unhappy woman was desolate again.

"Oh, my God, what has happened to the world?" whispered Lanny's mother. It certainly seemed as if some devil had got hold of affairs, at least temporarily. Everybody had been so happy, the playground of Europe had seemed such a delightful place - and here it was being turned into a charnel house, a sepulcher not even whited.

"I see those pitiful men marching away," said Airs. Emily, "and I think how the hospitals and the graves will be filled with them, and it just seems more than a woman can bear."

"I know," said Beauty; "it's one of the reasons why I'm so tempted to flee from France."

"If the Germans break through," said the other woman, "my home lies directly in their path."

"Surely the Germans wouldn't harm that beautiful place!" exclaimed Lanny's mother. But then right away she remembered having heard how the Turks used the Parthenon to store powder in!

XI

Robbie and his son went to dinner. Beauty declined their invitation; she couldn't eat anything, she said. They guessed that Harry was coming again. The time was getting short; if she was going she had a lot of packing to do. Apparently she was, for Mrs. Emily had given her another talking to. Also Robbie had been with her - and Robbie was not following the course he had advised for his son.