Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/100

I'll telephone," said Mrs. Brant; then, perceiving that her visitor continued to gaze at Campton, she added: "Oh, no, this is not. . . this is Mr. Campton."

"John Campton? I knew it!" Mrs. Talkett's eyes became devouring and brilliant. "Of course I ought to have recognised you at once—from your photographs. I have one pinned up in my room. But I was so flurried when I came in." She detained the painter's hand. "Do forgive me! For years I've dreamed of your doing me . . . you see, I paint a little myself. . . but it's ridiculous to speak of such things now." She added, as if she were risking something: "I knew your son at St. Moritz. We saw a great deal of him there, and in New York last winter."

"Ah———" said Campton, bowing awkwardly.

"Cursed fools—all women," he anathematized her on the way downstairs.

In the street, however, he felt grateful to her for reducing Mrs. Brant to such confusion that she had made no attempt to detain him. His way of life lay so far apart from his former wife's that they had hardly ever been exposed to accidents of the kind, and he saw that Julia's embarrassment kept all its freshness.

The fact set him thinking curiously of what her existence had been since they had parted. She had long since forgotten her youthful art-jargon to learn others more consonant to her tastes. As the wife of the powerful American banker she dispensed the cost-