Mme. Olida droned on. “It is your son who is writing—the young man with the very thick hair. He is writing to you—trying to explain something. Perhaps you have hoped to see him lately? That is it; he is telling you why it could not be. He is sitting quietly in a room. There is no smoke.” She released Mrs. Brant’s hand and Campton’s. “Go home, Madame. You are fortunate. Perhaps his letter will reach you to-morrow.”
Mrs. Brant stood up sobbing. She found her gold bag and pushed it toward Campton. He had been feeling in his own pocket for money; but as he drew it forth Mme. Olida put back his hand. “No. I am superstitious; it’s so seldom that I can give good news. Bonjour, madame, bonjour, monsieur. I commend your son to the blessed Virgin and to all the saints and angels.”
Campton put Julia into the motor. She was still crying, but her tears were radiant. “Isn’t she wonderful? Didn’t you see how she seemed to recognize George? There’s no mistaking his hair! How could she have known what it was like? Don’t think me foolish—I feel so comforted!”
“Of course; you’ll hear from him to-morrow,” Campton said. He was touched by her maternal passion, and ashamed of having allowed her so small a share in his jealous worship of his son. He walked away, thinking of the young man dying in a German hospital, and of the other man’s face succeeding his on the pillow.
XXII
Two days later, to Campton’s surprise, Anderson Brant appeared in the morning at the studio.
Campton, finishing a late breakfast in careless studio-garb, saw his visitor peer cautiously about, as though fearing undressed models behind the screens or empty beer-bottles under the tables. It was the first time that Mr. Brant had entered the studio since his attempt to buy George’s portrait, and Campton guessed at once that he had come again about George.
He looked at the painter shyly, as if oppressed by the indiscretion of intruding at that hour.
“It was my—Mrs. Brant who insisted—when she got this letter,” he brought out between precautionary coughs.
Campton looked at him tolerantly: a barrier seemed to have fallen between them since their brief exchange of words about Benny Upsher. The letter, as Campton had expected, was a line from George to his mother, written two days after Mr. Brant’s visit to Sainte Menehould. It expressed, in George’s usual staccato style, his regret at having been away. “Hard luck, when one is riveted to the same square yard of earth for weeks on end, to have just happened to be somewhere else the day Uncle Andy broke through.” It was always the same tone of fluent banter, in which Campton fancied he detected a lurking stridency, like the scrape of an overworked gramophone containing only comic disks.