that bring the victory home.
Ah, but the broken bodies
that drip like honey-comb!
A letter from Nina: “It is so dreadful, the way poor Rick has to suffer. I do not know how he can stand it. They are going to have to take out another piece of bone. Perhaps they ought to take the whole leg, but the doctors are not able to agree about it.” And then one from Beauty, with words of apology for the tear stains which marred it. These were the days when she was waiting in vain for some message from Marcel; she had to pass a still longer period, clinging to the hope that he might have been captured, and that she would get word through the organization in Switzerland which exchanged lists of prisoners.
One day there came in Lanny's mail a carefully wrapped package from France, and when he opened it, there was a charming little figure of a dancing man carved in wood. M. Pinjon, the gigolo, was back in his native village and wished to greet and thank his old friend. He didn't suggest that Lanny might interest some rich Americans in giving little dancing men as Christmas gifts; but of course Lanny knew how happy the poor cripple would be if this were done. Kind-hearted persons would take duties like this upon themselves — even while they knew how pathetically futile it was.
II
Gracyn Phillipson didn't take the trip to New York; at least not right away. The morning after her understanding with Lanny she received a letter from Walter Hayden. He had meant his praise, it appeared. He was at the town of Holborn, thirty or forty miles away, about to direct a show for the Red Cross ladies there. It was a war play, and had a “fat” part for a leading lady; the committee were dubious about their local talent, and Hayden had told them about his “find” in Newcastle. They couldn't pay any salary, but would guarantee her fifty dollars' expenses for two weeks if she cared to come. It would be a chance for her to have Hayden's direction in a straight dramatic role, and the experience might be very helpful to her. The girl was wild with delight, and phoned Lanny that she was leaving by the first train.
So now the youth had another art project to be absorbed in. When he finished his study of contracts and specifications for Budd fuses furnished to the United States navy, he did not go to the country club to play tennis, but motored to Holborn and took Gracyn Phillipson to dinner — an inexpensive procedure, since she was too excited to eat. Then he drove her to the hot little “opera house” where the rehearsals were held, and watched the work, and criticized and made suggestions, and drove home late at night. On Saturday afternoon he went and stayed overnight and on Sunday took her to the beach.
This again was supposed to be “art”; and again the gossips wouldn't believe it. It was too bad that there had to be truth in their worst suspicions. There are persons who believe in the ascetic life, and when their stories of renunciation are told, as in Browning's Ring and the Book, they make noble and inspiring literature. But Lanny Budd had been brought up under a different code, and his leading lady also had ideas of her own. On the stage she was acting a part of conventional “virtue,” and pouring intense feeling into it; but when she and Lanny were alone, she embraced him with ardor, and did not trouble to fit these two codes to each other.
Lanny felt free and happy, so long as he was in Holborn; but when he started on the long drive back to the home of Esther Remson Budd, a chill would settle over his spirit, and when he put his car in the garage and stole softly up to his room, he felt like a burglar. His stepmother didn't wait up for him, but she knew the worst — and, alas, the worst was true. She never said a word to him about it, but as the days passed, their relationship grew more and more formal. Esther saw herself justified in everything she had feared when she had let this bad woman's son into her home; he had that woman's blood and would follow her ways; he belonged in France, not in New England — at any rate not in her home, making it a target for the arrows of scandal. From that time on Esther would count the days to the latter part of September, when Lanny would be going back to school.