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smiles. "Oh, monsieur!" she exclaimed. "C'est une fille! Une tres belle fille! Si charmante!" She

made a gesture, indicating the size of a female prodigy. Lanny found himself going suddenly

dizzy, and reached for a chair.

"Et madame?" he cried.

"Madame est si brave! Elle est magnifique! Tout va bien." The formula again. Lanny poured

out questions, and satisfied himself that Irma was going to survive. She was exhausted, but

that was to be expected. There were details to be attended to; in half an hour or so it should

be possible for monsieur to see both mother and daughter. "Tout de suite! Soyez tranquille!"

The teacher of piano had Lanny Budd by the hand and was shaking it vigorously. For some

time after the American had resumed his seat the other was still pouring out congratulations.

"Merci, merci," Lanny said mechanically, meanwhile thinking: "A girl! Beauty will be

disappointed." But he himself had no complaint. He had been a ladies' man from childhood,

seeing his father only at long intervals, cared for by his mother and by women servants. There

had been his mother's women friends, then his half-sister and his stepmother in New England,

then a new half-sister at Bienvenu, then a succession of his sweethearts, and last of all his wife. He

had got something from them all, and would find a daughter no end of fun. It was all right.

Lanny got up, excused himself from the French gentleman, and went to the telephone. He

called his mother and told her the news. Yes, he said, he was delighted, or would be when he got

over being woozy. No, he wouldn't forget the various cablegrams: one to his father in

Connecticut, one to Irma's mother on Long Island, one to his half-sister Bess in Berlin. Beauty

would do the telephoning to various friends in the neighborhood—trust her not to miss those

thrills! Lanny would include his friend Rick in England and his friend Kurt in Germany; he

had the messages written, save for filling in the word "girl."

He carried out his promise to Pietro Corsatti. It was still early in New York; the story would

make the night edition of the morning papers, that which was read by cafe society, whose

darling Irma Barnes had been. After receiving Pete's congratulations, Lanny went back for others

which the French gentleman had thought up. Astonishing how suddenly the black clouds had

lifted from the sky of a young husband's life, how less murderous the ways of mother nature

appeared! It became possible to chat with a piano-teacher about the technique he employed; to

tell one's own experiences with the Leschetizsky method, and later with the Breithaupt; to

explain the forearm rotary motion, and illustrate it on the arm of one's chair. Lanny found

himself tapping out the opening theme of Liszt's symphonic poem, From the Cradle to the

Grave. But he stopped with the first part.

XII

The cheerful nurse came again, and escorted the successful father down a passage to a large

expanse of plate-glass looking into a room with tiny white metal cribs. Visitors were not

permitted inside, but a nurse with a white mask over her mouth and nose brought to the other

side of the glass a bundle in a blanket and laid back the folds, exposing to Lanny's gaze a brick-

red object which might have been a great bloated crinkled caterpillar, only it had appenda ges,

and a large round ball at the top with a face which would have been human if it hadn't been

elfish. There was a mouth with lips busily sucking on nothing, and a pair of large eyes which

didn't move; however, the nurse at Lanny's side assured him that they had been tested with

a light, and they worked. He was assured that this was his baby; to prove it there was a tiny

necklace with a metal tag; monsieur and madame might rest assured that they would not carry

home the baby of an avocat, nor yet that of a teacher of piano technique.

The bloated red caterpillar was folded up in the blanket again, and Lanny was escorted to

Irma's room. She lay in a white hospital bed, her head sunk back in a pillow, her eyes closed.

How pale she looked, how different from the rich brunette beauty he had left that morning!

Now her dark hair was disordered—apparently they hadn't wished to disturb her even that

much. Lanny tiptoed into the room, and she opened her eyes slowly, as if with an effort;

when she recognized him she gave him a feeble smile.

"How are you, Irma?"

"I'll be all right," she whispered. "Tired, awfully tired."

The nurse had told him not to talk to her. He said: "It's a lovely baby."

"I'm glad. Don't worry. I'll rest, and get better."

Lanny felt a choking in his throat; it was pitiful, the price that women had to pay! But he

knew he musn't trouble her with his superfluous emotions. A nurse came with a little wine,

which she took through a tube. There was a sedative in it, and she would sleep. He took her