"Charles Thierault is still interested in a shipping-line that runs to the City of Mexico, isn't he? He could perfectly well send our purchases from Marseilles to the City of Mexico for us. They would go in without duty, and Louie thinks he can get them across the border as household goods."
"That sounds practicable, Rosie. It might be managed."
Marsellus laughed and patted his wife's hand. "Oh-ho, cher Papa, you haven't begun to find how practical we can be!"
"Well, Louie, it's a tempting idea, and I'll think it over. I'll see whether I can arrange my work." St. Peter knew at that moment that he would never be one of this light-hearted expedition, and he hated himself for the ungracious drawing-back that he felt in the region of his diaphragm.
The family discussed their summer plans all evening. Louie wanted to write at once for rooms at the Meurice, but Mrs. St. Peter ruled it out as too expensive.
That night, after he was in bed, St. Peter tried in vain to justify himself in his inevitable refusal. He liked Paris, and he liked Louie. But one couldn't do one's own things in another person's way; selfish or not, that was the truth. Besides, he would not be needed. He could trust Louie to take every care of Lillian, and nobody could please her more than her son-in-law. Beaux-fils, apparently, were meant by Providence to take the husband's place when husbands had ceased to be lovers. Marsellus never forgot one of the hundred foolish little attentions that Lillian loved. Best of all, he admired her extravagantly, her distinction was priceless to him. Many people admired her, but Louie more than most. That worldliness, that willingness to get the most out of occasions and people, which had developed so strongly in Lillian in the last few years, seemed to Louie as natural and proper as it seemed unnatural to Godfrey. It was an element that had always been in Lillian, and as long as it resulted in mere fastidiousness, was not a means to an end, St. Peter had liked it, too. He knew it was due to this worldliness, even more than to the fact that his wife had a little money of her own, that she and his daughters had never been drab and a little pathetic, like some of the faculty women. They hadn't much, but they were never absurd. They never made shabby compromises. If they couldn't get the right thing, they went without. Usually they had the right thing, and it got paid for, somehow. He couldn't say they were extravagant; the old house had been funny and bare enough, but there were no ugly things in it.
Since Rosamond's marriage to Marsellus, both she and her mother had changed bewilderingly in some respects—changed and hardened. But Louie, who had done the damage, had not damaged himself. It was to him that one appealed,—for Augusta, for Professor Crane, for the bruised feelings of people less fortunate. It was less because of Louie than for any other reason that he would refuse this princely invitation.
He could get out of it without hurting anybody—though he knew Louie would be sorry. He could simply insist that he must work, and that he couldn't work away from his old study. There were some advantages about being a writer of histories. The desk was a shelter one could hide behind, it was a hole one could creep into.
When St. Peter told his family of his decision, Louie was disappointed; but he was respectful, and readily conceded that the Professor's first duty was to his work. Rosamond was incredulous and piqued; she didn't see how he could be so ungenerous as to spoil an arrangement which would give pleasure to everyone concerned. His wife looked at him with thoughtful disbelief.
When they were alone together, she approached the matter more directly than was her wont nowadays.