Edith Wharton - Novel 14 by A Son at the Front (v2.1) Page B

gossip, and it was likely enough that if George had special reasons
for wishing to spend his last evening away from his family she would know why.
But the chance of her knowing what had been kept from him made Campton’s
question, as soon as it was put, seem indiscreet, and he added hastily: “Not
that I want”
                 She
looked surprised. “No: he didn’t tell me. Some young
man’s affair, I suppose…” She smirked absurdly, her lashless eyes blinking
under the pushed-back veil.
                 Campton’s
mind had already strayed from the question. Nothing bored him more than Adele
doing the “sad dog,” and he was vexed at having given her such a chance to be
silly. What he wanted to know was whether George had spoken to his old friend
about his future—about his own idea of his situation, and his intentions and
wishes in view of the grim chance which people, with propitiatory vagueness,
call “anything happening.” Had the boy left any word, any message with her for
any one? But it was useless to speculate, for if he had, the old goose, true as
steel, would never betray it by as much as a twitch of her lids. She could
look, when it was a question of keeping a secret, like such an impenetrable
idiot that one could not imagine any one’s having trusted a secret to her.
                 Campton
had no wish to surprise George’s secrets, if the boy had any. But their parting
had been so hopelessly Anglo-Saxon, so curt and casual, that he would have
liked to think his son had left, somewhere, a message for him, a word, a
letter, in case … in case there was anything premonitory in the sobbing of that
girl at the next table.
                 But
Adele’s pink nose confronted him, as guileless as a rabbit’s, and he went out
with her unsatisfied. They parted at the door of the restaurant, and Campton
went to the studio to see if there were any news of
his maid-servant Mariette. He meant to return to sleep there that night, and
even his simple housekeeping was likely to be troublesome if Mariette should
not arrive.
                 On
the way it occurred to him that he had not yet seen the morning papers, and he
stopped and bought a handful.
                 Negotiations,
hopes, fears, conjectures—but nothing new or definite, except the insolent fact
of Germany ’s aggression, and the almost-certainty of England ’s intervention. When he
reached the studio he found Mme. Lebel in her usual place, paler than usual,
but with firm lips and bright eyes. Her three grandsons had left for
their depots the day before: one was in the Chasseurs Alpins, and probably
already on his way to Alsace , another in the infantry, the third in the heavy artillery; she did not
know where the two latter were likely to be sent. Her eldest son, their father,
was dead; the second, a man of fifty, and a cabinetmaker by trade, was in the
territorials, and was not to report for another week. He hoped, before leaving,
to see the return of his wife and little girl, who were in the Ardennes with the wife’s people. Mme. Lebel’s mind
was made up and her philosophy ready for immediate application.
                 “It’s
terribly hard for the younger people; but it had to be. I come from Nancy,
Monsieur: I remember the German occupation. I understand better than my
daughter-in-law. .
                 There
was no news of Mariette, and small chance of having any for some days, much
less of seeing her. No one could tell how long civilian travel would be
interrupted. Mme. Lebel, moved by her lodger’s plight, promised to “find some
one”; and Campton mounted to the studio.
                 He
had left it only two days before, on the day when he had vainly waited for
Fortin and his dancer; and an abyss already divided him from that vanished
time. Then his little world still hung like a straw above an eddy; now it was
spinning about in the central