Edgar Robbins

Edgar Robbins appears in the Paris scenes as an associate of J. Ward Moorehouse and a persistent critic of the peace taking shape around them. His cynicism is not merely a manner of conversation: it gives Eveline Hutchins and the reader a running counterpoint to the conference’s official language. He can dismiss the peace, the people who discuss it, and even the places where he spends his evenings, yet he keeps returning to those places and conversations. That contradiction makes him more than a spokesman for a single political judgment; he is a recurring voice of disillusionment inside the social world of the conference.

Position in Moorehouse’s Circle

When Moorehouse is occupied, Eveline and Robbins often go out together. Robbins seems to serve as a kind of assistant to Moorehouse, though the narrative does not specify his duties. Eveline likes listening to him, while Eleanor Stoddard cannot stand him and finds his cynicism insulting. Their differing responses establish Robbins as a divisive presence: his remarks amuse and engage Eveline, but Eleanor regards his manner as an affront.

Robbins forecasts that the peace will be more ghastly than the war and says that expressing his opinions openly would likely land him in jail. The prediction links his habitual skepticism to the political atmosphere of the negotiations: he sees frank dissent not as an ordinary part of debate but as something that may be punished. The book does not present him as an official negotiator or give him power over the settlement. Instead, he occupies the margins of the conference, where an observer can comment on its claims without controlling its decisions.

Freddy’s and the Social Life of Dissent

Robbins’s favorite gathering place is Freddy Seargeant’s establishment behind Montmartre. Eveline and others spend evenings in its small, crowded rooms, where Freddy plays guitar and sings. Guests recite poems about the road, misery, and assassination, or sing old French songs; when a performance pleases the room, the audience claps in unison. The informal communal response contrasts with the formal work of the peace conference, offering a setting in which people participate by listening, performing, and answering together.

Robbins does not romanticize the place. He calls it a fake, considers its calvados wretched, and disparages Freddy as a dirty old bum. Yet he keeps wanting to go back, even as he drinks one calvados after another and occasionally makes a crack about the day’s conference news. That gap between his scorn and his repeated return complicates his cynicism: he can ridicule the venue and its central figure without withdrawing from the company or the evening’s shared life. Freddy, for his part, welcomes the Americans with theatrical warmth, while Robbins remains the group’s sour commentator.

Moorehouse visits a couple of times, and the party sometimes brings a conference delegate, whose impression of their familiarity with Paris is part of the outing’s appeal. Moorehouse is enchanted by the old French songs, though the place makes him feel itchy and he suspects fleas. Eveline watches his absorbed response to the music and feels that Robbins fails to appreciate Moorehouse’s potential. Robbins’s presence thus affects how Eveline reads both men: his sarcasm can seem to her like a limit on Moorehouse’s expression, even while she enjoys listening to Robbins himself.

Political Criticism at the Opera and the Ritz

At the opera, Robbins remarks that the spectacle in the lobby is better than the one on stage. The setting is glittering and crowded with prominent figures; Eveline initially treats the performance as magnificent, while Robbins redirects attention from the production to the surrounding display. His observation makes public ceremony itself an object of scrutiny, suggesting that the people assembled and the show of importance may be as revealing as the art they have come to see.

During an intermission he turns to the oil business. While the party sits amid arguments under Woodrow Wilson, he says, Britain is securing future oil supplies and seeking control of Baku after gaining Persia and Mesopotamia. Eveline is bored and thinks he has been drinking too much, but the episode gives his cynicism a concrete political subject: he measures conference rhetoric against the strategic contest over resources. His account is presented as Robbins’s claim, not as an independent explanation of the negotiations, and Eveline’s response leaves a distance between his urgency and her attention at that moment.

At the Ritz bar, Robbins again questions the value of political language detached from the distribution of power. When Mr. Rasmussen asks what a League of Nations would be worth if dominated by Britain and its colonies, Eveline argues that any league would be better than none. Robbins counters that the name matters less than who benefits beneath it. A California newspaperwoman objects that this is no time for cynicism; Robbins replies that the circumstances are precisely why cynicism is necessary. Across these encounters, he repeatedly tests idealistic formulas against the interests they may conceal.

Narrative Role

The book supplies no full biography or decisive personal resolution for Robbins. His characterization is built instead through recurring conversations, social habits, and contrasts in viewpoint. He speaks sharply about the peace, punctures the opera’s spectacle, and returns to the same convivial Paris setting he derides. His perspective gives voice to suspicion that diplomatic names and performances can disguise contests over power and resources, while Eveline’s boredom, attraction, and disagreement show that his arguments do not command universal assent. Robbins remains a marginal observer of the negotiations, but his persistent skepticism helps make their gap between public ideals and material interests visible.