Each time that Campton came in contact with people on whom this calamity had fallen he grew more acutely aware of his own inadequacy. If he had been Fortin-Lescluze it would have been impossible for him to go back to Chalons and resume his task. If he had been Harvey Mayhew, still less could he have accommodated himself to the intolerable, the really inconceivable, thought that Benny Upsher had vanished into that fiery furnace like a crumpled letter tossed into a grate. Young Fortin was defending his country—but Upsher, in God’s name what was Benny Upsher of Connecticut doing in a war between the continental powers?
Suddenly Campton remembered that he had George’s letter in his pocket, and that he had meant to go back with it to Mrs. Brant’s. He had started out that morning full of the good intentions the letter had inspired; but now he had no heart to carry them out. Yet George had said: “Let mother know, and explain, please;” and such an injunction could not be disregarded.
He was still hesitating on a street corner when he remembered that Miss Anthony was probably on her way home for luncheon, and that if he made haste he might find her despatching her hurried meal. It was instinctive with him, in difficult hours, to turn to her, less for counsel than for shelter; her simple unperplexed view of things was as comforting as his mother’s solution of the dark riddles he used to propound in the nursery.
He found her in her little dining-room, with Delft plates askew on imitation Cordova leather, and a Death’s Head Pennon and a Prussian helmet surmounting the nymph in cast bronze on the mantelpiece. In entering he faced the relentless light of a ground-glass window opening on an air-shaft; and Miss Anthony, flinging him a look, dropped her fork and sprang up crying: “George——”
“George—why George?” Campton recovered his presence of mind under the shock of her agitation. “What made you think of George?”
“Your—your face,” she stammered, sitting down again. “So absurd of me.... But you looked.... A seat for monsieur, Jeanne,” she cried over her shoulder to the pantry.
“Ah—my face? Yes, I suppose so. Benny Upsher has disappeared—I’ve just had to break it to Mayhew.”
“Oh, that poor young Upsher? How dreadful!” Her own face grew instantly serene. “I’m so sorry—so very sorry.... Yes, yes, you shall lunch with me—I know there’s another cutlet,” she insisted.
He shook his head. “I couldn’t.”
“Well, then, I’ve finished.” She led the way into the drawing-room. There it was her turn to face the light, and he saw that her own features were as perturbed as she had apparently discovered his to be.