“How badly they march—there hasn’t even been time to drill them properly!” Campton thought; and at the thought he felt a choking in his throat, and his sorrow burst up in him in healing springs....
It was after that day that he first went back to his work. He had not touched paint or pencil since George’s death; now he felt the inspiration and the power returning, and he began to spend his days among the young American officers and soldiers, studying them, talking to them, going about with them, and then hurrying home to jot down his impressions. He had not, as yet, looked at his last study of George, or opened the portfolio with the old sketches; if any one had asked him, he would probably have said that they no longer interested him. His whole creative faculty was curiously, mysteriously engrossed in the recording of the young faces for whose coming George had yearned.
“It’s their marching so badly—it’s their not even having had time to be drilled!” he said to Boylston, half-shamefacedly, as they sat together one August evening in the studio window.
Campton seldom saw Boylston nowadays. All the young man’s time was taken up by his job with the understaffed and inexperienced Military Mission; but fagged as he was by continual overwork and heavy responsibilities, his blinking eyes had at last lost their unsatisfied look, and his whole busy person radiated hope and encouragement.
On the day in question he had turned up unexpectedly, inviting himself to dine with Campton and smoke a cigar afterward in the quiet window overhanging Paris. Campton was glad to have him there; no one could tell him more than Boylston about the American soldiers, their numbers, the accommodations prepared for their reception, their first contact with the other belligerents, and their own view of the business they were about. And the two chatted quietly in the twilight till the young man, rising, said it was time to be off.
“Back to your shop?”
“Rather! There’s a night’s work ahead. But I’m as good as new after our talk.”
Campton looked at him wistfully. “You know I’d like to paint you some day.”
“Oh——” cried Boylston, suffused with blushes; and added with a laugh: “It’s my uniform, not me.”