Page:A Son at the Front (1923) Wharton.djvu/248

Campton remembered Mme. de Tranlay's rebuke to Mrs. Brant on the day when he had last called in the Avenue Marigny; then he remembered also that it was on that very day that he had returned to his painting.

"After all, she held out longer than I did—poor Julia!" he mused, annoyed at the idea of her being the complacent victim of all the voracities he saw about him, and yet reflecting that she was at last living her life, as they called it at Mrs. Talkett's. After all, the fact that George was not at the front seemed to exonerate his parents—unless, indeed, it did just the opposite.

One day, coming earlier than usual to Mrs. Talkett's to put in a last afternoon's work on her portrait, Campton, to his surprise, found his wife in front of it. Equally to his surprise he noticed that she was dressed with a juvenility quite new to her; and for the first time he thought she looked old-fashioned and also old. She met him with her usual embarrassment.

"I didn't know you came as early as this. Madge told me I might just run in———" She waved her hand toward the portrait.

"I hope you like it," he said, suddenly finding that he didn't.

"It's marvellous—marvellous." She looked at him timidly. "It's extraordinary, how you've caught her rhythm, her tempo" she ventured in the jargon of the place. Campton, to hide a smile, turned away to get