“I might get a car and drive you down to Juan; but the servants know you, and have heard my mother and me talking about you during the war.”
“That's out.”
“I thought of Isadora Duncan, who's in Paris. She's an internationalist and has queer people around her all the time. But the trouble is, she's irresponsible. They say she's drinking — the war just about drove her crazy.”
There was a pause while he thought some more. “I believe our best guess is my mother. She's not very good at keeping secrets, but she'd surely keep this one because it means danger for me also.”
“Where is she?”
“In an apartment in a small hotel. Most of the time she's invited out to meals, but she has breakfast sent to her rooms. She has no servant except a maid, and could find some excuse to get rid of her. That's the one way I can think of to get you hidden.”
“But, Lanny, would your mother be willing to have a strange man in her apartment?”
“You aren't a stranger; you're my friend, and my mother knows how dear you are to me. It would be inconvenient, of course; but it's a matter of life or death.”
“But don't you see, Lanny — the hotel people would be sure that she had a lover. There couldn't be any other assumption.”
“They don't pay so much attention to that in Paris; and Beauty knows what it is to be gossiped about. You see, she lived with Marcel for years before they were married. All her friends know that story, and you might as well know it too.”