“He doesn't have to be dragged,” said the boy. “Don't you see that he would go anyway? We can't help that part of it. Most of the women of France will have that to endure.” Robbie had said this, and the boy knew it was right.
But Beauty was a different kind of woman, belonging to the class which wasn't supposed to suffer. So far she had refused to do so. That was why it seemed such a perfect solution of the problem to flee to America, in the care of a capable man who had no part in Europe's hates and slaughters. That was undoubtedly the sensible way — as Robbie and Emily and all her friends kept assuring her. How provoking and unreasonable that a woman who had given her heart couldn't get it back without rinding it all bleeding and torn!
“Tell me, what shall I do?” she repeated.
“Robbie doesn't want me to say any more about it,” the boy answered. “You know what I think.”
“Harry is coming to take me to dinner,” persisted the mother. “What am I to say to him?”
The boy remembered what his father had told him during the affaire Zaharoff. “Tell him the facts, Beauty.”
VI
Lanny returned to his other job. Robbie wrote out a long message to his father, advising him that Turkish officials were deeply involved in intrigues with Germany and the outcome might be a blockade of all Turkish ports. The British military mission advised that Britain would certainly want all the ground-type air-cooled machine guns it could get. Robbie advised against charging a higher price, except as part of a general boost in the price schedule. He recommended this latter more urgently than ever. Future quotations should be subject to increase depending upon raw-material prices certain to jump enormously.
A long message which would take a good part of the afternoon; Robbie hated to put it off on the youngster, but Lanny said he had never done anything he enjoyed more. He would stick right there and make himself an expert, and when Robbie was willing to send a message without checking it, he would be as proud as if he'd got the tiny red ribbon of the Legion of Honor.
So they went to work, Lanny at his table, and the father talking to harassed and exhausted military men. This went on until after seven o'clock, when Robbie said they'd eat, no matter' what happened to Europe. “Let's go to a place where real Parisians eat,” he suggested. “Fellow I know will be there.”