“I asked him to come and play for me,” said the kindly hostess. “He's really quite an exceptional person. He plans to be a composer and has studied every instrument in the orchestra — he says that you have to be able to play them if you are going to compose for them.”
“How interesting!” said Beauty, and she wasn't fibbing. “Where is he staying?”
“He tells me he's with friends for a few days. He's getting his mail at poste restante.”
Said the guileless friend: “I only had a chance for a few words with him, but I heard him talking with someone about the blockade of Germany.”
“He feels deeply about it. He says it is sowing the seeds of the next war. Of course, being an alien, he can't say much.”
“I suppose not.”
“It's really a shocking thing, Beauty. The more I hear about it the more indignant I become. I was talking to Mr. Hoover the other day; he has been trying for four months to get permission for a small German fishing fleet to go out into the North Sea — but in vain.”
“How perfectly ghastly!” exclaimed Lanny's mother.
“I am wondering if I shouldn't get some influential French people to come here some evening and hear Mr. Hoover tell about what it means to the women and children of Central Europe.”
“I've thought of the same idea, Emily. You know Lanny talks about that blockade all the time. The people at the Crillon are so wrought up about it.”