He felt her give a gasp. “Lanny — how” — and then: “That doctor?” “He doesn't know — but I guessed it. I want to tell you, it's all right with me.”
There was a pause; then to his astonishment, Beauty put her face in her hands and burst into tears. She sobbed and sobbed, and only after some time managed to blurt out: “Oh, Lanny, I was so afraid! I thought you'd hate me!”
“But why should I?” asked the boy. “We are going to understand each other, always — and be happy.”
Arms and the Man
I
IT WAS February; springtime on the Riviera. The garden was carpeted with irises and anemones, and overhead the acacia trees were masses of gold. It was the height of the “season”; the boulevards blooming with gay parasols trimmed with lace and with large, floppy hats with flowers and fruits on them. On the beaches the ladies wore costumes so fragile that it seemed too bad to take them into the water, and many didn't. There was opera every night, and gambling in scores of casinos, and dancing to the music of “nigger bands” — thumping and pounding on the Céte d'Azur as if it were the Gold Coast of Africa.
There had come a postcard from Robbie in London, then another from Constantinople, and now a “wireless” from a steamship expected to dock in Marseille next day. Beauty having engagements, Pierre took Lanny in the car to meet him. It was the Route Nationale, the main highway along the shore, becoming ever more crowded with traffic, so that the authorities were talking about widening and improving it; but to get things done took a long time in a land of bureaucracy. The traveler passed scenes of great natural beauty, embellished with advertisements of brandies, cigars, and mineral waters. You wound upward into the Estèrels, where the landscape was red and the road dangerous. Then came the Maures, still rougher mountains; in the old days they had been full of bandits, but now disorder had been banished from the world, and bandits appeared only in grand opera.
Pierre Bazoche was a swarthy, good-looking fellow of peasant origin, who had entered the service of Mrs. Budd many years ago and seemed unaffected by contact with wealth; he put on his uniform and drove the car whenever that was desired, and the rest of the time he wore his smock and cut the dead wood which the mistral blew down. He spoke French with a strong accent of Provence, and pretended that he didn't know English; but Lanny saw the flicker of a smile now and then, which led him to believe that Pierre was wiser than he let on. Like all French servants — those in the country, at any rate — he had adopted the family, and expressed his opinions with a freedom which gave surprise to visitors.
Pierre Bazoche and Lanny were fast friends, and chatted all the way. The boy was curious about everything he saw, and the chauffeur was proud of his responsibility, having been cautioned many times and made many promises. He could tell the legends of the district, while Lanny dispensed historical information from the guidebook. Toulon, the great French naval base: Lanny read statistics as to the number of ships and their armament, and wondered if any of it had come from Budd's.
The journey wasn't much more than a hundred miles, but cars were not so fast in those days, nor was the highway built for speed. When they got to the Quai du Port, the ship Pharaoh wasn't in sight yet, so they went to a waterfront cafe and ate fried cuttlefish and endives, and then strolled and watched the sights of one of the great ports of the world, with ships and sailors from the seven seas. If the pair had ventured into side streets, they would have found a “cabbage patch” of vast dimensions; but such places were dangerous, and they had promised to stay on the main avenues and never under any circumstances become separated.