Tears came into the mother's bright blue eyes; she saw that he was trying to spare her; he was being a darling, as usual. She hastened to explain the situation which now confronted her, the reasons why her decision was so important. If she were to marry Harry Murchison, that would cover all her past and make her a “respectable” woman; it wouldn't make Lanny legitimate, but it would keep anybody from bothering about it — and anyhow Robbie intended to acknowledge him as his son.
Lanny could understand all that; but he said: “What good will it do you to be respectable if you aren't happy?”
“But, Lanny!” she exclaimed. “I mean to be happy with Harry.”
“Maybe,” said he; “but I don't believe you'll ever forget that you left Marcel without any cause. Suppose he goes and jumps off the Cap?”
“Oh, Lanny, he won't do that!”
“How can you be sure? And then, suppose that France mobilizes? Marcel will have to go to war, won't he?”
Beauty turned pale; that was the horror she couldn't bring herself to face. The boy, seeing that he had the advantage, pushed harder. “Could you bear to leave him if you knew he had gone to fight for his country?” All Beauty could do was to bury her face in her arms and weep. Lanny said: “You better wait and see what happens.”
III
They wouldn't have to wait long. Surely nobody could complain of the slowness of events at the end of July 1914! First it was Russia mobilizing one and a quarter million men; then it was the German Kaiser serving an ultimatum to the effect that Russia had to cease mobilizing. Paris buzzed like a beehive at swarming time; for France was Russia's ally and was bound to go to war if Russia was attacked.
Robbie had said that the governments would find him, and they did. By one means or another, word spread that the representative of Budd's was staying at the Hotel Crillon, in a front suite with a pleasant view up the Champs-Élysées. Military gentlemen representing most of the governments of Europe came to enjoy that view, and partake of the array of drinks which Robbie had upon the sideboard in his reception room — all going onto the expense account of a munitions salesman. The immaculately uniformed gentlemen came to find out what stocks Budd's had on hand at present — of guns and ammunition, of course, not of whiskies, brandies, and liqueurs.