“Rich people are pretty much the same all over the world. They believe in money, and if you don't make money they think there's something wrong with you. If you don't see life as they do, they take it as a criticism, and right away you're an outsider. If I were taking you to meet my family, that's how I'd have to warn you.”
“Well, I'll write and let you know what I find, Marcel.”
“If you like it, all right. I'm just putting you on guard. You've had a happy life so far, everything has been easy — but it can hardly be like that all the way through.”
“Anyhow,” remarked the boy, “Robbie says that America's going to help France.”
“Tell them to hurry,” replied the painter. “My poor country is bleeding at every vein.”
III
Lanny was seventeen, and had grown nearly a foot in those thirty-two months since he had seen his father. For many youths it is an awkward age, but he was strongly knit, brown with sunshine and red with well-nourished blood. He came running from the train to welcome Robbie, and there was something in the sight of him which made the man's heart turn over. Flesh of my flesh-but better than I am, without my scars and my painful secrets! So Robbie thought, as the lad seized him and kissed him on both cheeks. There was a trace of down on Lanny's lips, light brown and soft; his eyes were clear and his look eager.
He wanted to know everything about his father in the first moment. That grand rock of a man, that everybody could depend on; he would solve all the problems, relieve all the anxieties — all in the first moment! Robbie looked just the same as ever; he was in his early forties, and his vigor was still unimpaired; whatever clouds might be in his moral sky showed no trace. He looked handsome in brown tweeds, with tie and shoes to match; Lanny, whose suit was gray, decided at once that he would look better in brown.
“Well, what do you think about the war?” The first question every man asked then.
The father looked grave immediately. “We're going in; not a doubt of it.”