Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/232

all my sons prefer. . . Even," she added, lowering her voice but lifting her head higher, "even, I'm sure, the one who is buried by the Marne." With a flush on her handsome face she pressed Mrs. Brant's hand and passed out.

Mrs. Brant had caught sight of Campton as she received the rebuke. Her colour rose slightly, and she said with a smile: "So many women can't get on without amusement."

"No," he agreed. There was a pause, and then he asked: "Who was it?"

"The Marquise de Tranlay—the widow."

"Where are the sons she spoke of?"

"There are three left: one in the Chasseurs à Pied; the youngest, who volunteered at seventeen, in the artillery in the Argonne; the third, badly wounded, in hospital at Compiègne. And the eldest killed. I simply can't understand. . ."

"Why," Campton interrupted, "did you speak as if George were at the front? Do you usually speak of him in that way?"

Her silence and her deepening flush made him feel the unkindness of the question. "I didn't mean . . . forgive me," he said. "Only sometimes, when I see women like that I'm———"

"Well?" she questioned.

He was silent in his turn, and she did not insist. They sat facing each other, each forgetting the pur-