Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/244

"My wife made Campton come back to his real work—doing his bit, you know," said Mr. Talkett, straightening a curtain and disappearing again, like a diving animal; and Mrs. Talkett turned her plaintive eyes on Campton. "That kind of idiocy is all I've ever had," they seemed to say; and he nearly cried back to her: "But, you poor child, it's the only honest thing anywhere near you!"

Absorbed in his picture, he hardly stopped to wonder at Jorgenstein's reappearance, at his air of bloated satisfaction or his easy allusions to Cabinet Ministers and eminent statesmen. The atmosphere of the Talkett house was so mirage-like that even the big red bulk of the international financier became imponderable in it.

But one day Campton, on his way home, ran across Dastrey, and remembered that they had not met for weeks. The ministerial drudge looked worn and preoccupied, and Campton was abruptly recalled to the world he had been trying to escape from.

"You seem rather knocked-up—what's wrong with you?"

Dastrey stared. "Wrong with me? Well—did you like the communiqué this morning?"

"I didn't read it," said Campton curtly. They walked along a few steps in silence.

"You see," the painter continued, "I've gone back to my job—my painting. I suddenly found I had to."