Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/224

elsewhere, and that he doesn't want us to find out where?"

Miss Anthony bent her long nose over the page. Her hand held the letter steadily, and he guessed, as she perused it, that she had had one of the same kind, and had already drawn her own conclusions. What they were, that first startled "George!" seemed to say. But would she ever let Campton see as far into her thoughts again? He continued to watch her hands patiently, since nothing was to be discovered of her face. The hands folded the letter with precision, and handed it back to him.

"Yes: I see why you thought that—one might have," she surprised him by conceding. Then, darting at his unprotected face a gaze he seemed to feel though he could not see it: "If it had meant that George had been ordered to the front, how would you have felt?" she demanded.

He had not expected the question, and though in the last weeks he had so often propounded it to himself, it caught him in the chest like a blow. A sense of humiliation, a longing to lay his weakness bare, suddenly rose in him, and he bowed his head. "I couldn't . . . I couldn't bear it," he stammered.

She was silent for an interval; then she stood up, and laying her hand on his shaking shoulder crossed the room to a desk in which he knew she kept her private papers. Her keys clinked, and a moment later she