The plant is all modern except for a few points.
He is sick—he wants to go up in Austria, to die probably.
It is a chance that is just insuperable.
You and me—what a pair!
Now don’t say anything yet until I finish.”
From the yellow glint in Baby’s eyes, Dick saw she was listening.
“We must undertake it together.
It would not bind you too tight— it would give you a base, a laboratory, a centre.
You could stay in residence say no more than half the year, when the weather is fine.
In winter you could go to France or America and write your texts fresh from clinical experience.”
He lowered his voice.
“And for the convalescence in your family, there are the atmosphere and regularity of the clinic at hand.”
Dick’s expression did not encourage this note so Franz dropped it with the punctuation of his tongue leaving his lip quickly.
“We could be partners.
I the executive manager, you the theoretician, the brilliant consultant and all that.
I know myself—I know I have no genius and you have.
But, in my way, I am thought very capable; I am utterly competent at the most modern clinical methods.
Sometimes for months I have served as the practical head of the old clinic.
The professor says this plan is excellent, he advises me to go ahead.
He says he is going to live forever, and work up to the last minute.”
Dick formed imaginary pictures of the prospect as a preliminary to any exercise of judgment.
“What’s the financial angle?” he asked.
Franz threw up his chin, his eyebrows, the transient wrinkles of his forehead, his hands, his elbows, his shoulders; he strained up the muscles of his legs, so that the cloth of his trousers bulged, pushed up his heart into his throat and his voice into the roof of his mouth.
“There we have it!
Money!” he bewailed.
“I have little money.
The price in American money is two hundred thousand dollars.
The innovation—ary—” he tasted the coinage doubtfully, “—steps, that you will agree are necessary, will cost twenty thousand dollars American.
But the clinic is a gold mine—I tell you, I haven’t seen the books.
For an investment of two hundred and twenty thousand dollars we have an assured income of—”
Baby’s curiosity was such that Dick brought her into the conversation.
“In your experience, Baby,” he demanded, “have you found that when a European wants to see an American VERY pressingly it is invariably something concerned with money?”
“What is it?” she said innocently.
“This young Privat-dozent thinks that he and I ought to launch into big business and try to attract nervous breakdowns from America.”
Worried, Franz stared at Baby as Dick continued:
“But who are we, Franz?
You bear a big name and I’ve written two textbooks.
Is that enough to attract anybody?
And I haven’t got that much money—I haven’t got a tenth of it.”
Franz smiled cynically.
“Honestly I haven’t.
Nicole and Baby are rich as Croesus but I haven’t managed to get my hands on any of it yet.”
They were all listening now—Dick wondered if the girl at the table behind was listening too.
The idea attracted him.
He decided to let Baby speak for him, as one often lets women raise their voices over issues that are not in their hands.
Baby became suddenly her grandfather, cool and experimental.
“I think it’s a suggestion you ought to consider, Dick.
I don’t know what Doctor Gregory was saying—but it seems to me—”
Behind him the girl had leaned forward into a smoke ring and was picking up something from the floor.
Nicole’s face, fitted into his own across the table—her beauty, tentatively nesting and posing, flowed into his love, ever braced to protect it.