When Lanny told his father what he had done, the latter was much amused. “Do you want to take it to America?”
Lanny laughed in turn. “I thought Beauty and I ought to have it. I'll send it to her, and she can stick it away with Marcel's work.”
“It's a queer sort of a present,” said Robbie, “but if it's what you want, O.K. There are half a dozen paintings of Beauty somewhere in the world, and you might hunt them up.” Then the shrewd businessman added: “Buy options for two years, and you'll get some bargains that'll surprise you. The franc has been pegged, but it won't hold after the war!”
VI
The tongues of the two young men were loosened and they talked about love. Lanny told of his happiness with Rosemary, now almost a year past. He didn't have a right to say how far they had gone — but he found that Rosemary had told Rick's sister, and she in turn had told Rick. These young people had few secrets; their “emancipation” took the form of voluminous talk, and it was a mark of enlightenment to employ the plainest words.
When Lanny said he hadn't been able to be interested in any other girl, Rick told him it was hard luck that he had aimed too high. “I mean,” he added, hastily, “from the English point of view. Her family puts on a lot of side. Of course, it's all bally rot; perhaps we'll sack the lot of them before this war is over.”
Lanny told what his father had said to Zaharoff, that it might end as it had in Russia; to which Rick replied in his free and easy way that he'd take his chances with a new deal. He informed his friend that the Codwilliger family was planning for Rosemary to marry the oldest grandson of the very old Earl of Sandhaven; the grandson was the future heir, since his father had been killed in the same siege of Gallipoli where Rosemary's father had been wounded. Lanny could see how useless it was for him to hope — that is, of course, from the English point of view. He gathered the impression that he had been greatly honored by having had the future mother of an earl for a temporary sweetheart.
It was Rick's turn to open his heart. “I've been meaning to tell you, Lanny — I'm married.”
“What?” cried the other, amazed.
“The night before I left for France. It's quite a long story. If you want to hear it — ”