He heard Mrs. Brant crying.
“Julia,” he said, “Julia, I wish you’d try to see....”
She dashed away her tears. “See what? All I see is you, sitting here safe and saying you can do nothing to save him! But to have the right to say that you ought to be in the trenches yourself! What do you suppose those young men out there think of their fathers, safe at home, who are too high-minded and conscientious to protect them?”
He looked at her compassionately. “Yes,” he said, “that’s the bitterest part of it. But for that, there would hardly be anything in the worst war for us old people to lie awake about.”
Mrs. Brant had stood up and was feverishly pulling on her gloves: he saw that she no longer heard him. He helped her to draw her furs about her, and stood waiting while she straightened her veil and tapped the waves of hair into place, her eyes blindly seeking for a mirror. There was nothing more that either could say.
He lifted the lamp, and went out of the door ahead of her.
“You needn’t come down,” she said in a sob; but leaning over the rail into the darkness he answered: “I’ll give you a light: the concierge has forgotten the lamp on the stairs.”
He went ahead of her down the long greasy flights, and as they reached the ground floor he heard a noise of feet coming and going, and frightened voices exclaiming. In the doorway of the porter’s lodge Mrs. Brant’s splendid chauffeur stood looking on compassionately at a group of women gathered about Mme. Lebel.
The old woman sat in her den, her arms stretched across the table, her sewing fallen at her feet. On the table lay an open letter. The grocer’s wife from the corner stood by, sobbing.
Mrs. Brant stopped, and Campton, sure now of what was coming, pushed his way through the neighbours about the door. Mme. Lebel’s eyes met his with the mute reproach of a tortured animal. “Jules,” she said, “last Wednesday ... through the heart.”