CHAPTER XIXTHE PENALTY
The billboards of Paris broke into universal ecstasy: “Schmolsky-Superba Présente l’Etoile Américaine, Viola Tracy, dans La Couche d’Or, Cinéma-Mélodrame de la Société en Huit Reels.” There were pages in the newspapers, “Premiere Production sur le Continent d’Europe”—Schmolsky was doing the job in style. “L’Etoile” herself was coming, all the way from California; and Bunny motored to Havre to meet her, and oh, how happy they were, a second honeymoon, with the old disharmonies forgotten. He drove her back to Paris—no, almost to Paris, she must board a train outside the city and make her entrance according to schedule announced in the newspapers. There were the shouting thousands, the cameras, and the reporters, including those whose duty it would be to cable the stirring news back to New York and Angel City.
The world grows one, and it is the “cinéma-mélodrame de la Société” that is doing it—which is to say the world grows American. The premiere here in Paris was the same as a premiere in Hollywood, except that the crowd made more noise, and sought to embrace its idol, actually imperilling the idol’s life. There was a double reason for excitement, because the man who had played the leading part was no common movie actor, but a real prince from Roumania, who had been visiting in Southern California, and had yielded to the wiles of Schmolsky and become a star for a night. Now here he was in person, on his way home to Roumania—having traveled on the train and the steamer with Vee, so Bunny learned. A tall, lean young man, not very handsome, but used to attention; courteous, but easily bored, wearing a quizzical smile, and reluctant to be serious—until he heard Bunny express some sympathy with the murderous and blasphemous reds! After that, he preferred the company of Bunny’s sister.
When the Paris premiere was over, Dad got him a touring car of royal proportions, and they motored to Berlin, Bunny driving, with Vee by his side, and Dad on the back seat with his secretary and a chauffeur for emergencies. It was all just as grand as their tour to New York; perfect roads, beautiful scenery, humble peasantry standing cap in hand and awe-stricken, servants rushing to wait upon them at every stop. All Europe owes us money, and this is how it pays.
And then Berlin—“Erste Auffuehrung in Deutschland, Schmolsky-Superba ankuendigt,” etc. And the crowds and the cameras and the reporters—the world was one. This had been enemy country less than six years ago; but did any ex-soldiers in uniform take station at the theatre entrance, and forbid American films to set too high a standard for the native product? They did not; and Bunny smiled, remembering his remark to Schmolsky, “Vae victis!” and the latter’s reply, “Huh?”
They went on to Vienna. It is a poor city now, and hardly repays the advertising; but there is still magic in the name, and it counts with the newspapers. So here was another premiere, less noisy but more genial. Vee and her lover were a little bored now; she had had the last great “kick” that she could get out of life. When a star has had her continental tour, and has got tired of it, she is an old-timer, blasée and world-weary, and life from then on is merely one thing after another.
The person with gift of perennial childhood was Dad. He enjoyed each premiere as if he had never seen the others, and he would have liked to go on to Bucharest, where her majesty the queen—herself a genius at advertising—was to attend the first showing, in honor of Prince Marescu. But another attraction kept Dad in Vienna—the spooks had followed him! His friend, Mrs. Olivier had given him a letter to a wonderful medium, and they went to a seance, and Vee was told all about the patent medicine vendor who had raised her in a wagon—the very phrases this man had used to the crowd. By golly, if it was a trick, it was certainly a clever one!
There was only one cloud on this second honeymoon, and Bunny kept it hidden in his own soul. There were “youth” papers in both Berlin and Vienna, and he considered himself bound to call at their offices and invite the rebel editors to lunch, and send home letters for Rachel to publish. In Vienna was a paper in the English language devoted to the defense of political prisoners; it was a Communist paper, but so well camouflaged that Bunny didn’t realize the fact, and anyhow, he would have wished to meet the editors. He was still making his pitiful attempt to understand both sides—even here in Central Europe, where the Socialists and the Communists had many times been at open war.
In this obscure office in a working-class part of the city Bunny came upon a ghastly experience. There was exhibited to him a creature that had once been a young man, but now was little more than a skeleton covered with a skin of greenish-yellow. It had only one eye and one ear, and it could not speak because its tongue had been pulled out or cut off, and most of its front teeth had been extracted, and its cheeks were pitted with holes made by cigarettes burned into it. Likewise all the creatures’ finger-nails had been torn out, and its hands burned with holes; the men in the office bared its shirt, and showed Bunny how the flesh had been ripped and torn by lashes this way and that, like cross-hatchings in a pen and ink drawing.
This was a prisoner escaped from a Roumanian dungeon, and these scars represented the penalty of refusal to betray his comrades to the White Terror. Here in this office were photographs and letters and affidavits—for this kind of thing was being done to thousands of men and women in Roumania. The government was in the hands of a band of ruling class thugs, who were stealing everything in sight, selling the natural resources of the country; one of the biggest of Roumanian oil fields had just been leased to an American syndicate, possibly Comrade Ross had heard of that? And Comrade Ross said that he had. He didn’t add that his father was in on the deal!
This victim of the White Terror was from Bessarabia, a province taken from Russia under the blessed principle of self-determination. It was inhabited by Russian peasants, and the natural struggles of these people for freedom were met by slaughtering or torturing to death not merely everyone who revolted, but everyone who expressed sympathy with the revolt. Nor was this a sporadic thing, it was the condition prevailing all along the Russian border, a thousand miles from the Baltic to the Black Sea. All these provinces and countries, inhabited by Russian peasants, had been taken from the reds and given to the whites. And so you had this situation—on the Eastern side of the line the peasants had the land and the government, they were free men and women, making a civilization of workers; while on the other side they were serfs at the mercy of landlords, robbed of the fruits of their toil, and beaten or shot if they ventured a murmur. It was impossible to prevent peasants from one side crossing to the other; and the contrast between the two civilizations was so plain that no child could fail to understand it. So the class struggle went on all the time, a hideous civil war, of which no word was allowed to leak to the outside world.
Left to themselves, this landlord aristocracy could not survive a year. But they had world capital behind them; they got the munitions with which to do the slaughtering, or the money to make the munitions, from American big business. Yes, it was America which kept alive this White Terror, in order to collect interest on the debts, and to come in and buy up the country—the railroads, the mines, the oil fields, even the great castles and landed estates. Would not Comrade Ross tell the American people what bloody work their money was doing?
Bunny went away with the question on his conscience. Would he tell, or wouldn’t he? Would he begin by telling his darling of the world? Would he mention that the young Prince Marescu, whom she so greatly admired, was the son of one of the bloodiest of these ruling class thugs?
All the time Bunny was driving his darling through winding passes amid the glorious snow-covered mountains of Switzerland, he was not happy as it was his duty to be. He would have long periods of brooding, and she would ask, what was the matter, and he would evade. But then she would pin him down—being shrewd, like most women where love is concerned. “Is it those reds you’ve been visiting?” He said, “Yes, dear, but let’s not talk about it—it isn’t going to make any difference to us.” She answered, ominously, “It is going to make all the difference in the world to us!”
Back in Paris, and there were long letters from Verne; the government had filed suit for the return of its oil lands, and the Sunnyside tract was in the hands of a receiver, and all the development stopped. But they were not to worry—their organization would be put to work on the various foreign concessions, and as for the money, what they were getting out of Paradise would keep them in old age.
Strange to say, Dad worried scarcely at all. Mrs. Olivier had discovered a new medium, even more wonderful than the others, and this Polish peasant woman with bad teeth and epilepsy had brought up from the depths of the universal consciousness the spirit of Dad’s grandfather, who had crossed the continent in a covered wagon and perished in the Mohave desert; also there was the spirit of an Indian chief whom the old pioneer had killed during the journey. Most fascinating to listen while the two warriors told about this early war between the reds and the whites!
Bertie was furious, of course; she didn’t dare say much to Dad, for the old man was still the boss, and would tell her “where to get off.” She took it out on Bunny, storming at him, because he was the one who might have saved Dad from this dangerous vamp. Bunny couldn’t help laughing, because Mrs. Olivier was so far from the type which the Hollywood directors had taught him to recognize: a stoutish, elderly lady, sweet and sentimental, with a soft, caressing voice—it was too funny to listen to her coo to the fierce and surly Indian chief, “Now, Red Wolf in the Rain, are you going to be nice to us this evening? We are so glad to hear you again! Captain Ross’s little grandson is here, and wants you to tell us if the faces of the redmen are white in your happy world.”
Bunny was taking Vee about to see Paris; a city which was exhibiting to the world the moral collapse of capitalist imperialism. In the theatres of this culture centre you might see a stage crowded with naked women, their bodies painted every color of the rainbow; some of them died of the poisoning which this treatment inflicted upon the system, but meantime the war for democracy was justified. While Bunny was there, the artists of the city took offense because the managers of the underground railway objected to an obscene advertisement; to express their scorn of censorship, some hundreds of men and women emerged at dawn, having torn off their clothing in drunken orgies, and invaded the subway cars entirely naked. These beauty-creators and guides of the future held a festival once every year, the Quatres Arts Ball, a famous event to which Vee, as a visiting artist, was welcome; and here, when the revels were at their height, you might stroll about a vast hall, and see, upon platforms set against the walls, the actual enactment of every variety of abnormal vice which human degeneracy had been able to conceive.
With the time he had left from such diversions, Bunny was preparing for “The Young Student” a moving protest against the Roumanian White Terror. He left this nearly completed manuscript on the writing table in his hotel room, and when he came back it was gone, and inquiries among the hotel staff brought no information. Two days later Bertie came to him with another tantrum; she knew all the contents of his manuscript, and what shame he was bringing upon their heads! “So Eldon’s been setting spies on me!” exclaimed Bunny, ready to get hot himself; but Bertie, said rubbish, Eldon had nothing to do with it, it was the French secret service. Did he imagine for a moment the government was failing to keep track of Bolshevik propaganda? Or that they would let him use their country as a centre of plotting against the peace of Europe?
Bunny wanted to know, were they so silly as to imagine they could keep him from writing home what he had learned in Vienna? He would do the article over, and find ways to get it to America in spite of all the spies. Then Bertie actually broke down and wept; of all countries for him to pick out—Roumania! Here she had been pulling wires to get Eldon appointed to a high diplomatic post, with the combined influence of Verne in Washington and Prince Marescu in Bucharest; and now Bunny came along and smeared them with his filth!
And more than that! Blind fool, couldn’t he see that Marescu was interested in Vee? Did he want to give her up to him? The prince would of course hear about this matter through the French government, which was arming Roumania against Russia. Suppose he were to come back to Paris and challenge Bunny to a duel? The young smart-aleck answered, “We’ll fight with tennis rackets!”
Matters came to a climax. A letter for Bunny, bearing a French stamp, but in a familiar handwriting that made his pulses jump. He tore it open and read: “Dear Son, I am in town for a few days and would you like to meet me? Yours for old times, Paul Watkins.”
Bunny was twenty-four years old now, but it was just the way it had been eleven years ago, there in Mrs. Groarty’s back yard, when he had left his father and run shouting, “Paul! Paul! Where are you? Please don’t go way!” Bunny had a date with Vee, but he got out of it—his sister would invite her to one of those diplomatic tea-parties where you met the Prince de This and the Duchesse de That. Then Bunny hurried off to the obscure hotel where his friend was staying.
Paul was haggard; one does not take a trip to Moscow to get fat. But his sober face was shining with a light of fanaticism—the same thing which his brother Eli called the glory of the Lord! Dad would have said there were two of them, equally crazy; but it didn’t seem that way to Bunny, who mocked at Eli’s god, but believed in Paul’s—at least enough to tremble in his presence. Paul had been living under a workers’ government again—and this time not as a wage-slave, a strike-breaker in army uniform, but as a free man, and master of the future. So now in this dingy hotel room Bunny was sitting opposite an apostle; Paul, with his sombre, determined features and toil-accustomed figure, the very incarnation of the militant working-class!
And the miracles of which he had to tell were real. First of all a spiritual miracle—a hundred million people proclaiming their own sovereignty, and the downfall of masters and exploiters, kings, priests, capitalists, the whole rabble of parasites. It was a physical miracle, too, because these hundred million people controlled one-sixth of the earth’s surface, and were building a new civilization, a model for the future. They were poor, of course; they had started with a country in wreck. But what were a few years, and a little hunger, compared with the ages of torment they had survived?
Paul described the sights of Moscow. First of all, the youth movement; a whole new generation being taught to be clear-eyed and free, to face the facts of nature, and to serve the working-class, instead of climbing out upon its face and founding a line of parasites! You saw those young Communists in class-rooms, on athletic fields, in the streets—marching, singing, listening to speeches—Paul himself had talked to tens of thousands, in his little bit of Russian, and nothing had ever meant so much to him. He had but one interest for the rest of his life, to tell the young workers of America about the young workers of Russia. He began by telling Bunny!
He talked about the councils he had attended, the international gatherings where the future of the parties all over the world was charted out. Bunny of course made his protest against this. Did Paul really think it was possible for an American political party to have its course determined in a foreign country? Paul smiled and said it was hard enough—the Russian leaders couldn’t understand how far back in history America stood. But what else could you do? Either you meant to have world order, or you didn’t? If you left the party in each country to determine its own course, you were right back where you were before the war, with men calling themselves Socialists, and holding power in the name of Socialism, who were in reality patriots, ready to back the exploiters of their own land in wars against the exploiters of other lands.
That was the thing which threatened to destroy the human race; and the only way to end it was to do what the Third International was doing—have a world government and enforce its orders. The workers’ world government was located in Moscow, because elsewhere the delegates would be thrown into prison, or assassinated, as in Geneva. But before many years the Third International would hold a Congress in Berlin, and then in Paris and London, and in the end in New York. The workers of the world would send their representatives, and that Congress would give its orders, and the nations would stop their fighting, just you bet! Thus Paul: and Bunny, as usual, was swept along upon a wave of enthusiasm.
There were so many things Bunny wanted to know about. He took Paul to dinner, in an outdoor café, and they spent a good part of the evening, French fashion, conversing there. Paul told about the schools; all the new educational discoveries that had been made in America, but could only be applied in Russia. And the papers and books—the modern, progressive writers being translated and spread over the half of two continents. And industry—the colossal labors of a people to build a modern world out of nothing, with no capital and no help from the outside. Paul described the oil industry under this Soviet system; a state trust, in which the workers’ unions were recognized, and given a voice in labor affairs. The workers published papers, they had clubs and dramatic societies, a new culture, based upon industry instead of exploitation.
Then, of course, Bunny wanted to know about Ruth, and about Paul’s arrest and his trial, and what was he going to do now. He was on his way back to America, and would probably be put to organizing in California, because that was the place he knew best. He had been in Paradise and held secret meetings with the men; until at last he had been found out and put off the tract—the place where he had been born, and had lived nearly all his life! But that was all right, the party had a “nucleus,” as it was called, in the field, and literature was being distributed and read.
Bunny told what he had learned in Vienna, and how his article on Roumania had been stolen; Paul said that in every European capital there were more spies than there were lice. Very probably there was some agent sitting at one of these tables, trying to hear what they said. His baggage was rifled every few days. The imbecile governments, trying to crush the workers’ movement—and at the same time piling up their munitions, getting ready for the next war, that would make Bolshevism as inevitable as the sunrise!
“You really think there’ll be another war, Paul?”
The other laughed. “Ask your eminent brother-in-law! He’ll know.”
“But he wouldn’t tell me. We barely speak.”
Paul answered that armaments produce wars automatically; the capitalists who make the armaments have to see that they are used, in order to get to make more. Bunny said that the idea of another war seemed too horrible to think about; and Paul replied, “So you don’t think about it, and that makes it easy for the business men to get it ready.”
He sat for a bit in thought, and then went on, “Since I’ve been travelling in Europe, I find myself remembering that night when you and I met for the first time. Do you recollect it, son?”
When Bunny said that he did, Paul went on, “I wasn’t in my aunt’s living-room, and I didn’t see those people that had come to lease their lots; but I listened outside and heard the wrangling; and now, as I go about Europe I say to myself, that is world diplomacy. A wrangle over an oil lease! Every nation hating every other one, making combinations and promising to stick together—but they’ve sold each other out before night, and there’s no lie that any one hasn’t told, and no crime they haven’t committed. You remember that row?”
How well Bunny remembered! Miss Snypp—he hadn’t known her name, but her face rose before him, brick-red with wrath. “Let me tell you, you’ll never get me to put my signature on that paper—never in this world!” And Mr. Hank, the man with the hatchet-face, shouting, “Let me tell you, the law will make you sign it”—only there was no law in European diplomacy! And Mrs. Groarty, Paul’s aunt, glaring at Mr. Hank and clenching her hands as if she had him by the throat. “And you the feller that was yellin’ for the rights of the little lots! You was for sharin’ and sharin’ alike—you snake in the grass!”
Said Paul: “Those people were so blind with greed, they were willing to throw away their own chances for the satisfaction of beating the others. They did that, I think you told me—threw away the lease with your father. And everybody in the field behaved the same way. I wonder if you happen to know, it’s government statistics on that Prospect Hill field—more money was spent in drilling than ever was taken out in oil!”
“Yes, of course,” said Bunny. “I’ve seen derricks there with platforms actually touching.”
“Each one racing to get the oil, and spending more than he makes—isn’t that a picture of capitalism? And then the war! You remember how we heard the racket, and ran to the window, and there was one fellow hitting the next fellow in the nose, and the whole roomful milling about, shouting and trying to stop the fight, or to get into it!”
“One said, ‘You dirty, lying yellow skunk!’ And the other said, ‘Take that, you white-livered puppy!’ ”
“Son, that was a little oil war! And a year or two later the big one broke out, and if there’s anything you don’t understand about it, all you need is to think about what happened in my aunt’s home. And remember, they were fighting for a chance to exploit the oil workers, to divide the wealth the oil workers were going to produce; in their crazy greed they killed or injured seventy-three percent of all the men they put to work on Prospect Hill—that’s government statistics also! And don’t you see how that’s the world war exactly? The workers doing the fighting, and the bankers getting the bonds!”
So many things to talk about! Bunny told the story of Eli, concerning which Paul had heard no rumor. The latter said it was easy to understand, because Eli always had been a chaser after women. It was one reason Paul had been so repelled by his brother’s preaching. “I wouldn’t mind his having his girl,” he said, “only he denies my right to my girl. He preaches a silly ideal of asceticism, and then goes off secretly and does what he pleases.”
Here was an opportunity for which Bunny had been seeking. He took a sudden plunge. “Paul, there’s something I want to tell you. For the past three years I’ve been living with a moving picture actress.”
“I know,” said Paul; “Ruth told me.”
“Ruth!”
“Yes, she saw something about it in the papers,” And then, reading his friend’s thought, Paul added, “Ruth has had to learn that the world is the way it is, and not the way she’d like it to be.”
“What do you think about such things, Paul?”
“Well, son, it’s a question of how you feel about the girl. If you really love her, and she loves you, why, I suppose it’s all right. Are you happy?”
“We were at first; we still are, part of the time. The trouble is, she hates the radical movement. She doesn’t really understand it, of course.”
Paul answered, “Some people hate the radical movement because they don’t understand it, and some because they do.” After Bunny had had time to digest that, he went on, “Either you’ll have to change your ideas, or you’ll have a break with the girl. That’s something I’m sure about—you can’t have happiness in love unless it’s built on harmony of ideas. Otherwise you quarrel all the time—or at least, you’re bored.”
“Have you ever lived with a woman, Paul?”
“There was a girl I was very much attracted to in Angel City, and I could have had her, I guess. But it was a couple of years ago, when I saw that I was going Bolshevik, and I knew she wouldn’t stand for it, so what was the use? You get yourself tangled up in a lot of emotions, and waste the time you need for work.”
“I’ve often wondered about you and such things. You used to think the way Eli talks, when we first met.”
Paul laughed. “I’d hardly keep my Christian superstitions when I became a Communist organizer. No, son; what I think is, find a woman you really love, and that wants to share your work, and that you mean to stick by; then you can love her, you don’t need any priest to give you permission. Some day I suppose I’ll meet a woman comrade—I think about it a good deal, of course—I’m no wooden post. But I’ll have to wait and see what happens at my trial. I’d be little use to a girl if I’ve got to spend twenty years in Leavenworth or Atlanta!”
Paul was going to speak at a meeting of Communists the next evening, and Bunny must go to that meeting, of course. But what was he to do with Vee? She would not be interested in hearing Paul tell about Russia; she had learned all about it from her friend, Prince Marescu. Bunny bethought him of Dad and the seances, and by tactful manipulation he caused the old gentleman to call up Vee and tell her about an especially interesting seance they were going to have that evening. Vee promised to come, and Bunny thought he was free.
But then about lunch-time Bertie called him on the phone. “So your old Paul is in Paris!”
Bunny was startled; having thought he was keeping a secret. Then he laughed. “So your old secret service has been at work!”
Said his sister, “I just thought you might be interested to know—your old Paul is not going to speak tonight. The police have arrested him.”
“Who told you that?”
“They’ve just notified the embassy. He’s to be expelled—in fact he’s on his way now.”
“My God, Bertie, are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Did you think they’d let him make Bolshevik speeches in France?”
“I mean—are you sure they’re going to expel him?” Bunny had learned so much about the treatment accorded to the reds—all Europe had adopted the sweet custom of the American police, to beat their prisoners with rubber hose, which leaves no marks upon the skin. So there began a wrangle over the phone, Bunny in a panic, insisting upon knowing what official had given the information to Eldon; and Bertie insisting that Bunny should not make another of his stinks in Paris, and maybe get himself deported, and his brother-in-law ruined in the eyes of all Europe.
In the end Bunny hung up, and called the office of the Communist newspaper. Did they know about the arrest of Comrade Puull Votkan—so it was necessary to say it. No, they knew nothing about it, they would endeavor to find out. And Bunny jumped into a taxi-cab and hastened to the office of the Prefet de Police, where he was received with a lack of that courtesy which police officials usually display to young gentlemen properly tailored. They had no information to give about the American, Puull Votkan, but they would like to receive information about an American named Zhay Arnoll R-r-osss feess, and how long he expected to abuse the hospitality of the French government by giving sums of money to enemies of public safety.
Meantime Bertie, in her desperation, was appealing to Vee Tracy, begging her to make one more effort to get Bunny out of this hideous entanglement. Vee answered that she would make one more, and only one. She turned from the telephone and ordered her maid to pack her belongings, and when Bunny came back from his visit to the police, he found a note in his mail-box:
“Dear Bunny: I have just learned why I was to be put off with a spiritualist seance tonight, instead of going to the opera with you! The time has come when you have to choose between your red friends and me, and I have moved to another hotel until you make up your mind. Please give me your decision by letter. Do not try to see me, because I will not speak to you again until this matter has been settled. If it is to be all over between us, a quick clean cut is the way I choose. I will no longer endure the humiliation of being associated with dangerous criminals; and unless you can say that you love me enough to change your associates, I mean that you are never to see me again. Take time to think it over, but not too much time. Yours, Vee.”
As a matter of fact, Bunny did not need any time. Even while he was reading the letter, a voice was telling him that he had known it was coming. After the first shock of pain had passed, he sat himself down and wrote:
“Dear Vee: We have had great happiness together. I have suffered for a long time, because I knew it had to end. I won’t waste your time arguing in defense of my ideas; I have some, and cannot give them up, any more than you can yours. I wish you every happiness that can come to you in life, and hope you will not cherish bitterness in your heart, because it is something I truly cannot change. If ever the time comes that I can aid you, I will be yours to command. With just the same affection, Bunny-rabbit.”
Bunny must not stop to nourish his grief, but must hurry to call upon the French Communists and offer to pay the costs of a lawyer to institute legal proceedings and find out what was happening to Paul. But as a matter of fact the effort was not necessary, for next morning all the newspapers had the story: a notorious American Bolshevik agitator had been escorted by the authorities to Havre and placed on board a steamer to sail that day. The Communist paper in its report commented sarcastically; this was one Bolshevik agitator whom the American government could not very well refuse to admit, since they had him under bond of twenty thousand dollars to make his appearance in court! Bunny had so little confidence in the French authorities that he took the precaution to wireless Paul to the steamer with reply prepaid; and a few hours later he got the words, “On the way to Paradise”—a code message from Paul!
Three days later came a message from his sweetheart—no code this time, but a proclamation to the whole world. The newspapers of Paris and all other capitals—of Madagascar, Paraguay, Nova Zembla, Thibet and New Guinea—announced the engagement of Viola Tracy, American screen actress, to Prince Marescu of Roumania; the wedding was to take place in the great cathedral of Bucharest, and Queen Marie herself would attend. The efficient publicity organization of Schmolsky-Superba had contrived many a stunt in its time, but never one so effective as this which fate handed to it, free, gratis, and for nothing!
And so there was a chapter closed in Bunny’s life. The door which had led from his suite in the hotel to Vee’s suite was locked, and a piece of furniture moved in front of it. But there was no piece of furniture that could be moved in front of the memory in Bunny’s mind! Nothing could shut out that slender white figure, so vivid and eager, and the memory of the delights she had brought to him. He was maimed in soul, as the victims of the White Terror were maimed in body—and in the same cause!
There were women here, of all kinds and sizes, native and American, young ladies of the highest fashionableness, willing to receive the attentions of a young oil prince. They knew about his romance and his broken heart; and their shrewd mammas told them an ancient formula, known to the feminine world since the dawn of coquetry—“Catch him on the rebound!” Bunny was besought to attend tea-parties and dances, but mostly he went to Socialist meetings; and when he thought about girls, it was to Angel City that his fancy fled. Ruth Watkins was so gentle and quiet, yet brave—not giving up her brother because he turned into a Bolshevik! And Rachel Menzies was so steady, so grim in her determination to send him a four-page paper, as regular as the calendar, and always telling him everything he wanted to know! Once every month she sent an itemized statement of receipts and expenditures, typed with her own fingers, and always exactly right—whatever dollars were left over went for sample copies, so he was never troubled by either surplus or deficit!
September, and Dad came bringing an announcement that caused him to hesitate, and turn fiery red after he got going. “You know, son, I have got to be very good friends with Alyse, we—that is, we are interested in the same ideas, and we realize that we can help each other.”
“Yes, Dad, of course.”
“Well, the fact is—you know how it is—I’ve been imposing on you for so long, but now you will be free, because I’ve asked Alyse to marry me, and she consents.”
“Well, Dad, I’ve been expecting that for quite a while. I’m sure you will be happy.”
Dad looked very much relieved—had he feared a tantrum, after the fashion of Bertie? He hastened to say, “I want to tell you—Alyse and I have talked the matter over, and we agree—she is fond of you, and appreciates your standing by me and all, and she wants you to know that she’s not marrying me for my money.”
“No, Dad, I don’t think that.”
“Well, you know Bertie, and what she thinks. Bertie is mercenary—I suppose she got it from her mother. Anyhow, I’m not a-goin’ to say anything to her about this, it is none of her business; we’ll jist get married on the quiet, and Bertie can read about it in the papers. What I’m a-goin’ to do is this—Alyse says she hasn’t had anything to do with helping me make my money, and she don’t want my children to hate her, as they will if she comes in and takes a big share.”
“Oh, but I won’t, Dad!”
“We’ve agreed that I’m to make a will, and leave a million dollars to her, and the rest will go to you and Bertie, and Alyse will be satisfied with that—it will give her enough to carry on the psychic work she’s interested in. You understand, she wants to do that—”
“Yes, of course, Dad. I am a propagandist too!”
“I know son; and what I’ve been thinking—you have a right to express your ideas. And while I don’t agree with that little paper, I can see that it’s honest, it says what you think; so I’m a-goin’ to make over a million dollars worth of Ross stock to you, and you can jist go ahead and do what you please with that. I hope you won’t turn into a Bolsheviki like Paul, and I hope you won’t find it necessary to get into jail.”
“It would be pretty hard to keep me in jail if I had a million dollars, Dad.”
The old man grinned; the mediums and the spirits had not yet driven the old devil entirely out of him. He went on to say that of course they weren’t going to have as much money as he had once thought. Those government suits were a-goin’ to dig a big hole in it—no doubt the politicians would fix it so Dad and Verne would lose. Of course they might get a pile out of these new deals abroad, but that was speculative—not the sort of thing Dad fancied, but he was leaving it to Verne.
“What are you and Mrs.—Alyse going to do, Dad?”
“Well, we want to have a sort of—you might call it a Spiritualist honeymoon. We’ll go see that medium in Vienna, and there’s another in Frankfort that we’ve heard about. It’ll depend for one thing on what you want. Maybe you’ll go back to California.”
“I think I will, Dad, for a while—if you are sure you can spare me.”
Yes, Dad said he and Alyse would get along all right; his secretary had learned enough French for practical purposes, and they would have a courier or interpreter for their stay in Germany. He hoped the climate there would agree with him; he didn’t seem ever to be strong now. That flu had sort of done him up.
The preliminary steps were taken, and Bunny and his father and the secretary and Mrs. Alyse Huntington Forsythe Olivier all put on their best glad rags and appeared before the maire of one of the small towns on the outskirts of Paris and were duly wedded, and Bunny kissed his new stepmother on both cheeks, and the maire did the same, and also kissed Bunny and Dad on both cheeks. And then Dad took his son to one side and placed an envelope in his hands. It was an order on Verne to turn over thirty-two hundred shares of Ross Consolidated Class B stock; a little more than a million at the market. They were “street certificates,” Dad explained—he had already signed them and left them with Verne, in case they wished to market them. “And now, son,” said the old man, “have a little sense—this is a pile of money, and don’t throw it away. Take your time, and be sure what you want to do, and don’t let yourself be plucked by grafters that will come round jist as soon as they smell it!”
The same old Dad! They gave each other hugs and squeezes; there were tears in everybody’s eyes, even the secretary, and the maire and his clerks, who had never heard of such fees for a wedding—marvelous people, ces Americains! And Bunny said for Dad to write all the news, and Dad said for Bunny to write all the news; and Bunny said he would return to France next summer if Dad were not able to come to America, and Dad said he was sure Verne would have it all fixed up before that. And then Bunny kissed his stepmother again, and then he hugged Dad again, and then shook hands with the secretary—a regular debauch of the sweet sorrows of parting, with the officials and a crowd of street urchins standing by on the sidewalk, staring at the grand rich car and the grand rich Americans. Bunny was glad to look back on it in after years—at least that once the old man had been happy! All the chatter, and the messages, and the flowers, the baggage to be seen to and the robes to be tucked in—and then at last they were rolling down the street, amid waving of hands and cheers—headed for a Spiritualist seance in Frankfort-am-Main!
Bunny took a train back to Paris, and wrote out two messages announcing that he was sailing for home; one to Ruth Watkins and one to Rachel Menzies—playing no favorites! Then he bought a paper, and read a brief despatch—“Great California Oil Fire.” A bolt of lightning had struck one of the storage tanks of the Ross Consolidated Oil Company at Paradise, California, and as a high wind was blowing, it was not thought possible to save any portion of the tank-farm, and possibly the whole field might be destroyed.
When Bunny got back to the hotel, there was a cablegram from Angel City. It was impossible to make any guess what the damage would be, but they were fully insured and nothing to worry about, “A. H. Dory”—still Verne’s signature when he wanted to be playful. Bunny forwarded the message to his father, and asked if he should wait; but Dad’s answer was, no, whatever he had to say could be said by letter or cable, and he would be glad to have Bunny on the scene to report. “Love and best wishes,” were the concluding words—the last that Dad was ever to say to his son, except through the channel of the spirits!
A steamer took Bunny out to sea—one of those floating hotels, like the one he had left in Paris, fitted in the style of a palace, mahogany finish and silken draperies and cushions, and the most elegant society, flashing jewels and costly gowns—five thousand dollars per female person would have been a modest estimate for evenings in the dining saloon. And very soon the tongues of gossip began to buzz—“His father’s the California oil man, they say he owns whole fields out there, but one of them is burning up, according to the papers. The Ross that was in the scandal, you remember, he’s hiding abroad, been there nearly a year, but the son can come back, of course. They say he was one of the lovers of Viola Tracy, but she chucked him and married the Roumanian prince. Catch him on the rebound, my dear!”
So everybody was lovely to Bunny; so many charming young things to dance with, until any hour of the morning; or to stroll on deck and be lost in the darkness with, if one preferred. All day they flitted about him, casting coy and seductive glances: they were interested in everything he was interested in, even the book he was reading—provided he would talk about it instead of reading it. There were some who would say that they were interested in Socialism, they didn’t know much about it, but were eager to learn. Until the second morning out, when the young Socialist received a wireless which entirely removed him from fashionable society:
“Your father very ill with double pneumonia have obtained best medical attention will keep you informed deepest sympathy and affection Alyse.”
So then Bunny walked the deck alone, and suffered exactly those torments of remorse which Vernon Roscoe had predicted for him. Oh, surely he could have been kinder, more patient with that good old man! Surely he could have tried harder to understand and to help! Now fate was taking him away, five or six hundred miles every day—and at any moment might snatch him to a distance beyond calculation. His father himself had felt it—Bunny went over what he had said, and realized that Dad had faced the thought of death, and had been giving his son such last advice as he could.
At first nothing but remorse. But then little by little the debate—the old, old dispute that had torn Bunny’s mind in half. Was it possible for men to go on doing what Dad had been doing in the conduct of his business? Could any civilization endure on the basis of such purchase of government? No, Bunny told himself; but then—he should have tried harder, more lovingly, and persuaded his father to stop it! But at what stage? Dad had been purchasing government ever since Bunny could remember, as a little boy. All the oil men purchased government, all big business men did it, either before or after election. And at what stage of life shall a boy say to his father, your way of life is wrong, and you must let me take charge of it?
There was no new thought that Bunny could think about all this; any more than in the case of Vee Tracy. Just the grief, and the ache of loneliness! Old things going; they kept going—and where did they go? It was a mystery that made you dizzy, at moments like this; you stood on the brink of a precipice and looked down into a gulf! The most incredible idea, that his father, who was so real, and had been for so long a part of his being—should suddenly disappear and cease to be! For the first time Bunny began to wonder, could Alyse be right about the spirits?
Another message in the evening. “Condition unchanged will keep you advised sympathy and affection.” These last words never failed in the messages; the next day, when Dad’s condition was the same and the crisis expected tomorrow; and then tomorrow, when Dad was sinking; and then, the morning after, when Alyse wired, “Your father’s spirit has passed from this world to the next but he will never cease to be with you he spoke of you at the last and promises that if you will communicate with a good medium in Angel City he will guide your life with love and affection as ever Alyse.” And then a message from Bertie: “I was with Dad at the end and he forgave me will you forgive me also.” When Bunny read that, he had to hurry to his stateroom, and lie there and cry like a little child. Yes, he would forgive her, so he wired in reply, and might whoever had made them forgive them all!